Addressing the specific needs of organic farming in the New EU Member States by the Rural Development Programmes 2007-2013

Summary

In all New EU Member States (NMS) and Candidate Countries (CCs) there is a lack of support measures for organic farming, other than area pay-ments, and there is no coherent policy for organic farming in general. The most significant problem areas are the general policy environment, underde-veloped marketing and processing, an almost total lack of information measures, insufficient and inap-propriate organic production capacity, and a lack of training and advisory services. The latest EU regula-tion on support for rural development provides a framework for a variety of measures to assist the development of organic farming and is therefore an important instrument for policy-makers, together with national action plans for organic farming. The problem issues can be addressed by appropriate measures in the four Axes of the Rural Development Regulation. Consistent with the EU Action Plan for Organic Food and Farming, Member States should prioritise organic farming within their overall rural development programme (RDP) in order to develop a coherent set of measures which address the most problematic issues in the national organic sectors and promote sustainable development.