The serres bio will be warming up for the winter. The national committee of organic agriculture was authorized on Thursday the use of heating of greenhouses in organic farming. However, the marketing of fruits and vegetables French products in these terms and conditions will be prohibited between December 21 and April 30, said the ministry of Agriculture.
in addition, the government plans to impose the use of renewable energy sources for fuel by 2025, according to the ministry of Agriculture
The debate has divided the farmers: the committee vote has already been postponed twice, in December 2018 and April, 2019, in the absence of consensus between the different members, bringing together the agricultural unions, chambers of agriculture, cooperatives, associations of organic food producers, consumer associations and the administration.
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In favor of the use of heated greenhouses, the National Federation of trade Unions of Agricultural Operators (FNSEA), cooperatives and chambers of agriculture hold that on the heating to dry cultivated soils and to prevent the development of fungi harmful to crops. Produce in heated greenhouse would limit the use of toxic products, including copper, to eliminate these fungi.
Produce them in heated greenhouse would also increase the number of tomatoes and cucumbers. “Nearly 78% of the organic tomato is present in the long pipelines of the distribution in France is imported from Germany, Poland, Israel, or Argentina,” says Christiane Lambert, president of the FNSEA. According to the union, renounce the heated greenhouse would “distortions of competition” within Europe, leaving market share to other producing countries, european or foreign, who do not intend to forego the organic cultivation in heated greenhouse, while the demand of organic products is believed to 15.7% in 2018, according to the Agence bio.
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The secretary of State for the ecological Transition Brune Poirson poses on Thursday 11 July in the morning the question of what is the most ecological way between the plane of the vegetables in the off-season and planting in the greenhouse. “Attention, I does not validate”, nuance-t-it, but “you need to see the CO2 impact and the measure”. “There are consumers who want tomatoes all year, I think it’s important that our behaviors are changing and it is necessary to eat vegetables in season,” she says also.
A european standard fuzzy
The european standard, fuzzy on this point, allows the rational use of energy, preferably renewable, in the greenhouses. But member countries are free to define their own ways to implement and apply.
In front, the National Federation of Organic Farming (FNAB), as well as unions of entrepreneurs of the bio and the associations of the consumers in its wake are opposed to the use of this mode of production.
According to Nolwenn Virot, close to the FNAB and chair of the group of organic farmers in the Finistère, first department concerned with the production of tomatoes in the greenhouse heated with the Loire Atlantic, “organic farmers produce tomatoes and cucumbers from hothouses. The heated greenhouses allow us to produce more, but at the price of a carbon footprint, which goes against the spirit of organic.” Heating greenhouses, bio all winter to 20 degrees and returns to spend around 200,000 to 250,000 litres of fuel oil per hectare, reports a representative of the FNAB. A position also defended by the chef Olivier Roellinger, the breton chef triple-starred, now converted into the spices. “The so-called compromise is perverse: a entourloupe!” is annoying-there in Paris.
A debate in trompe-l’oeil
the position of The FNAB based on the principles of organic: the link to the soil and especially the seasonality, which means respecting the natural biological rhythms of fruit and vegetables.
Olivier Nasles, chairman of the national committee of organic agriculture, believes that the debate around heated greenhouses is a sham. “The two families are willing to abide by the seasonality, as provided for in the european Union. The question will be whether we will be able to produce more in heating the greenhouses, or if we will adopt more restrictive legislation.”. In fact, “for sale at 21 march, it is necessary to heat the previous three months. At the coldest time of the year!” he says.
The administration, with six votes distributed to different directions, and at the bio Agency on the fifty votes counting for the votes would have tipped the balance. If the minister of Agriculture, Didier Guillaume, former president of the first department bio of France, the Drôme, has already indicated personal opposition to the heating of greenhouses, the government has shown open on Tuesday 9 July to this option, subject to conditions, in organic agriculture.
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