Organic farming is the best practice to ensure both food security and environmental respect, Europe recognizes.

The only weak point is that productivity is still far below that of traditional farming methods, which use fertilisers and pesticides. Trough the TP Organics technology platform, research is therefore being carrying out at European level to overcome this drawback.

Launched in December 2008, the TP Organics platform (for organic food and farming research) brings together industry, the research community and civil society to define organic research priorities for the period up to 2025.

“Eco-functional intensification” of organic farming is one of the ideas put forward by TP Organics. It stands for “producing more food without compromising the quality of the environment, of foods, the quality of life of farmers and welfare of farm animals”. The platform suggests carrying out more research into using natural resources more efficiently, improving nutrient recycling techniques, and developing agro-ecological methods for enhancing diversity and the health of soils, crops and livestock.

TP Organics calls for more focus on diversity of crops, fields, rotations, landscapes and a variety of farm activities as "a key to better adaptation to climate change," the platform argues. Other adaptation techniques, such as breeding or irrigation, are said to be "time-consuming or demand expensive investment". The platform particularly stresses the role of biodiversity as an “important driving factor for system stability and a prerequisite for sustainable pest and disease management”. Biodiversity and agro-ecosystems can be stabilised by improving soil fertility and habitat management, and diversifying landscape complexity and the genetic make-up of crops, it says.

Using EU subsidies to reward farmers' contribution to protecting resources and biodiversity is currently being debated in view of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy after 2013, Euractiv.com underlines.

Heino Graf von Bassewitz, chair of the organic farming group at Copa-Cogeca, the EU farmers' organisation, declared: “Organics will become more successful on markets once oil prices increase again (oil is a key ingredient for producing pesticides, predominant in traditional farming) and thanks to the eco-intensification of organics”.

More info at www.tporganics.eu