2023-06-29 13:43:01
It’s the return of tomatoes in winter. Consumers will once once more be able to buy French summer vegetables labeled organic, out of season, therefore grown in greenhouses heated with fossil gas, under a court decision which saddens some of the producers.
Torn between supporters of heating greenhouses in the name of economic rationality, and those of organic farming that respects the cycle of the seasons, France had reached a compromise in 2019 which was canceled this Wednesday by a decision of the Council of State.
The highest administrative court considered that the French authorities were “not competent” to enact rules relating to the production and marketing of organic products, already governed by a European regulation.
Imports were not affected
In 2019, the arbitration, found under the aegis of the Minister of Agriculture at the time Didier Guillaume, sought to sound the truce in the pitched battle between historical organic players and producers wishing to accelerate its development.
This compromise did not prohibit organic market gardeners from heating their greenhouses, but prohibited the marketing of summer vegetables (tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, eggplants and cucumbers) with the organic label between December 21 and April 30. This ban did not apply to imported products. “There can be no counter-seasonality in organic. We don’t eat organic products in winter once morest the season,” Didier Guillaume said at the time.
“It was an incomprehensible decision, a betrayal that penalized all our greenhouse producers,” Jean-Michel Delannoy, president of the Federation of Fruit and Vegetable, Flower and Potato Cooperatives (Felcoop) told AFP on Thursday. , which seized the Council of State with the federation of vegetable producers, a specialized association of the first agricultural union FNSEA.
VIDEO. Are organic tomatoes still green?
According to Jean-Michel Delannoy, this did not reduce the heating of greenhouses (tomatoes grown in greenhouses can be marketed as conventional products until May 1) but gave “freedom” to imports.
“I don’t want to be banned from producing what our neighbors can do,” he says. In addition, according to him, the measure dissuaded young people from settling in bio: “Hell is sometimes paved with good intentions. »
A tomato grown out of season four times more polluting
The Ministry of Agriculture took “note” of the decision of the Council of State on Wednesday evening. Minister Marc Fesneau intends to “support producers in organic farming in their approach to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and storing more carbon in the soil”, commented the ministry.
It “will continue to promote organic farming that respects the environment and natural cycles within European bodies, respecting consumer expectations, and in a context of harmonized regulations at European level”, he added.
The National Federation of Organic Agriculture (Fnab), which opposes the heating of greenhouses, was satisfied with the 2019 compromise even if it would have preferred “a pure and simple ban”, in the words of its then president. , Guillaume Riou.
“The decision of the Council of State risks pushing for the industrialization of organic in France and the decline of the environmental requirements of the label”, regrets the organization on Thursday in a statement to AFP. The Fnab adds that it wants to “quickly analyze all the remedies available to us to continue to defend the highest environmental requirements in organic products”.
An off-season tomato generates four times more greenhouse gases “than a tomato produced in the good season (between June and September)”, according to the French Agency for Ecological Transition Ademe. Its carbon footprint is considerably increased by the heating of greenhouses, most often with gas.
“The problem of decarbonizing greenhouses is obvious, it must be taken head on,” defends the president of Felcoop, Jean-Michel Delannoy. “We have all understood this, but it cannot be done in five minutes and without means”, he continues, pleading for the State to devote 25 million euros in aid per year to the decarbonization of heated greenhouses. .
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