Report of the second stakeholder workshop of the Organic Revision Project

Summary in the original language of the document

At the European Joint Organic Congress held in Odense, Denmark on 30 - 31 May 2006 the Organic Revision Project organised the Theme 3 "What should be the rule?" The theme included sessions in related to the ongoing revision of the EU regulation. The sessions for this theme were the 2nd stakeholder workshop of the Organic Revision Project.
This report contains a short summary of all sessions that are directly relevant to the theme. Annex 1 includes the programme of the sessions in this theme. The first session (Session A 1-2-3) was the opening sub-plenary for the broader Topic 1 of Sustainable Rural Development, which included the Theme 3. In this session, a representative from the Organic Farming Unit in DG Agriculture of the European Commission introduced the proposal for a new European regulation for organic farming. The second session (B3) had the main purpose of proving a forum for discussion of the Commission proposal for total revision of 2092/91 from December 2005 with presentation of two different stakeholders and ongoing work in the Organic Revision Project. The third session (C3) presented ongoing work in WP 2 of the Organic Revision project in relation to the case study of the question of local food and regionality, alongside work from other researchers on the same themes. Session D3 focused on flexibility and regional variation in the standards and included one presentation with a first analysis of entries in the organic the Organic Rules Database, conclusions from the SAFO network about livestock standards in relation to regional diversity and a presentation from DG Agriculture of the European commission about flexibility in organic standards, regional differences. The final session on intensification and conventionalisation of the organic food and farming sector also is relevant to ongoing work in WP2 and included one presentation on the IFOAM process of formulating its principles of organic agriculture and two papers examining whether or not there are any indications of conventionalisation of organic producers in Europe.