Mögliche Auswirkungen der novellierten Drittlandsimportregelung der EU-Öko-Verordnung (EG) Nr. 834/ 2007 - Einschätzung anhand einer Expertenbefragung -

Die Kontrolle und Zertifizierung von ökologischen Produkten in Drittländern für den Import in die EU stellt eine Herausforderung dar. Die Zielsetzung der vorliegenden Arbeit ist eine Untersuchung der möglichen Auswirkungen der neuen Drittlandsregelung auf der Basis einer Expertenbefragung. Acht Experten wurden telefonisch anhand eines Leitfadens befragt. Zwei übergeordnete Fragestellungen sollten beantwortet werden: 1. Welche Vor- und Nachteile beinhalten Konformität beziehungsweise Gleichwertigkeit in Bezug auf die Verbrauchersicherheit von Drittlands-Öko-Produkten? 2. Welche Vor- und Nachteile bieten Konformität beziehungsweise Gleichwertigkeit in Bezug auf kleinbäuerliche Landwirtschaft in Entwicklungsländern? Die Konformität ist sowohl aus dem Blickwinkel der Verbrauchersicherheit, als auch aus Sicht der Entwicklungsländer kritisch zu beurteilen. Stattdessen sollte eine sinnvolle Gestaltung der Gleichwertigkeit angestrebt werden. Hinsichtlich der Verbrauchersicherheit in der EU sind der Prozess der Gleichwertigkeitsbeurteilung und die Sicherstellung von Transparenz von großer Bedeutung. Eine Einschränkung der Gestaltungsfreiheiten für Gleichwertigkeitbeziehungsweise eine starke Anlehnung an die EU-Öko-Verordnung oder den Codex Alimentarius würden die Gleichwertigkeitsbeurteilung vereinfachen. Andererseits ist die lokale Anpassung von Standards in der ökologischen Landwirtschaft wichtig, so dass eine hohe Gestaltungsfreiheit für diese Standards der Umsetzbarkeit in Entwicklungsländern entgegen kommen würden. Aufgrund der strengen Anforderungen und der Exportorientierung findet jedoch in der Praxis eine starke Anlehnung an die Standards der wichtigen Importländer statt

Environmental, Social, and Economic Impacts of Sustainability Certification in the Agricultural Sector – The Current State of Empirical Research

Various stakeholders involved with sustainability certification are interested in knowing whether certification really fulfills its promises. Business managers who have to determine what type of products to source, consumers who are concerned about making appropriate buying decisions for themselves and their families, producers who think about obtaining certification, and sustainability standard initiatives that themselves need arguments to support their certification programs. A recent study conducted by FiBL (Niggli et al 2011) reviewed the current state of empirical research on environmental, social, and economic impacts of sustainability certification in the agricultural sector. One result of the study was that a disproportionate number of research papers are on the impacts of organic standards in comparison to the other labels under investigation (Fairtrade, Sustainable Agriculture Standard certified by the Rainforest Alliance, UTZ Certified, Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, and Roundtable on Responsible Soy)

Mitigating Greenhouse Gases in Agriculture

Climate change has severe adverse effects on the livelihood of millions of the world’s poorest people. Increasing temperatures, water scarcity and droughts, flooding and storms affect food security. Thus, mitigation actions are needed to pave the way for a sustainable future for all. Currently, agriculture directly contributes about 10-15 percent to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Adding emissions from deforestation and land use change for animal feed production, this rises to about 30 percent. Scenarios predict a significant rise in agricultural emissions without effective mitigation actions. Given all the efforts undertaken in other sectors, agriculture would then become the single largest emitter within some decades, and without mitigation in agriculture, ambitious goals, such as keeping global warming below two degrees may become impossible to reach. The main agricultural emission sources are nitrous oxide from soils and methane from enteric fermentation in ruminants. In addition, conversion of native vegetation and grasslands to arable agriculture releases large amounts of CO2 from the vegetation and from soil organic matter. The main mitigation potential lies in soil carbon sequestration and preserving the existing soil carbon in arable soils. Nitrous oxide emissions can be reduced by reduced nitrogen application, but much still remains unclear about the effect different fertilizer types and management practices have on these emissions. Methane emissions from ruminants can only be reduced significantly by a reduction in animal numbers. Sequestration, finally, can be enhanced by conservative management practices, crop rotation with legumes (grass-clover) leys and application of organic fertilizers. An additional issue of importance are storage losses of food in developing and food wastage in developed countries (each about 30-40 percent of end products). Thus, there are basically five broad categories of mitigation actions in agriculture and its broader context: zz reducing direct and indirect emissions from agriculture; zz increasing carbon sequestration in agricultural soils; zz changing human dietary patterns towards more climate friendly food consumption, in particular less animal products; zz reducing storage losses and food wastage; zz the option of bioenergy needs to be mentioned, but depending on the type of bioenergy several negative side-effects may occur, including effects on food security, biodiversity and net GHG emissions. Although there are many difficulties in the details of mitigation actions in agriculture, a paradigm of climate friendly agriculture based on five principles can be derived from the knowledge about agricultural emissions and carbon sequestration: zz Climate friendly agriculture has to account for tradeoffs and choose system boundaries adequately; zz it has to account for synergies and adopt a systemic approach; zz aspects besides mitigation such as adaptation and food security are of crucial importance; zz it has to account for uncertainties and knowledge gaps, and zz the context beyond the agricultural sector has to be taken into account, in particular food consumption and waste patterns. Regarding policies to implement such a climate friendly agriculture, not much is yet around. In climate policy, agriculture only plays a minor role and negotiations proceed only very slowly on this topic. In agricultural policy climate change mitigation currently plays an insignificant role. In both contexts, some changes towards combined approaches can be expected over the next decade. Its 13 is essential that climate policy adequately captures the special characteristics of the agricultural sector. Policies with outcomes that endanger other aspects of agriculture such as food security or ecology have to be avoided. Agriculture delivers much more than options for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and serving as a CO2 sink. We close this report with recommendations for the five most important goals to be realized in the context of mitigation and agriculture and proposals for concrete actions. First, soil organic carbon levels have to be preserved and, if possible, increased. Governments should include soil carbon sequestration in their mitigation and adaptation strategies and the climate funds should take a strong position on supporting such practices. Second, the implementation of closed nutrient cycles and optimal use of biomass has to be supported. Again, governments and funds should act on this. Policy instruments for nitrate regulation are a good starting point for this. As a third and most effective goal, we propose changes in food consumption and waste patterns. Without a switch to attitudes characterized by sufficiency, there is a danger that all attempts for mitigation remain futile. Finally, there are two goals for research, namely to develop improved knowledge on nitrous oxide dynamics, and on methods for assessment of multi-functional farming systems. Without this, adequate policy instruments for climate friendly agriculture and an optimal further development of it are not possible

No-till agriculture – a climate smart solution?

No-tillage farming systems or no-till, as an aspect of conservation farming, are actively promoted by international research and development organizations to conserve soils and by this, ensure food security, biodiversity and water conservation. Instead of tilling before seeding, seeds are deposited directly into untilled soil by opening a narrow slot trench or band. Today, it is also seen as mitigation and adaptation option and thus being promoted as a measure to be supported under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). There are even many voices advocating no-till to benefit from any future and existing carbon market. But: Is no-till the solution to reduce the hunger in the world and to mitigate climate change? It has been proven that no-till can signifi cantly reduce soil erosion and conserve water in the soils. This is regarded as a basis for higher and more stable crop yields – but science shows that this is not necessarily true. Discouragingly, there are numbers of examples of no yield benefits or even yield reductions under no-till in developing countries, especially in the first up to ten years. However, particularly the crop yields are crucial for the food security of small-scale farmers and not whether a method is more efficient or not. Although humus can be enriched under no-tillage, the sequestration of soil carbon, is result of the accumulated organic matter in the topsoil, is restricted to the upper 10 cm of the soil. Compared with ploughing, no carbon benefi t – or even a carbon defi cit – has been found at soil depths below 20 cm. This is why no-till makes little or no contribution to carbon sequestration and does not prove to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in croplands. The quantifi cation of carbon sequestration rates under no-till are highly doubtful. Anyhow, it is very likely that emission reductions generated from no-till projects in developing countries would serve to offset emissions from he industry and transport sector in developed countries. Those well quantifi ed emissions from developed countries would thus be offset by uncertain reductions from agriculture projects. The overall aim of the UNFCCC – to avoid dangerous climate change – would be jeopardized. Even if no-till became a promising mitigation option, other environmental problems would remain. No-till farming systems often come along with the industrialization of agriculture with high inputs of agrochemicals. On the one hand, small-scale farmers are not skilled in handling such chemicals. On the other hand there remains a risk that they apply cheap chemicals, which persist long-term in the environment. Efforts should therefore be strengthened on how to combine sustainable production systems such as organic agriculture with no-till practices. To summarize, there are too many open questions and uncertainties concerning the impact of no-till on crop yields and carbon sequestration, so that no-till could not be sold as the solution for hunger reduction and adequate option to mitigate climate change but as an important part of integrated strategies. Therefore, we recommend keeping no-till and reduced till out of the carbon market unless reliable carbon offset quantifi cation and monitoring can be undertaken at reasonable cost

Bewertung von Unternehmen im Lebensmittelsektor

Die Welternährungsorganisation FAO hat nun erstmals eine umfassende Definition von Nachhaltigkeit für den Lebensmittelsektor  vorgelegt. Auf dieser Basis wurde mit SMART eine Methode entwickelt, anhand derer Unternehmen aus dem Lebensmittelbereich ihre Nachhaltigkeitsleistungen darstellen können

Sustainability Monitoring and Assessment Routine: Results from pilot applications of the FAO SAFA Guidelines

There is currently no common understanding of how to measure sustainability in the food sector. To close this gap, the FAO has developed Guidelines for Sustainability Assessments of Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA), which were published as a test version in June 2012. The Guidelines describe about 60 sustainability objectives, which are classified into 20 themes and four dimensions: Good governance, Environmental integrity, Economic resilience, Social well-being, as well as assessment procedures. This paper presents an approach for the sustainability assessments of enterprises in the food and agriculture sector in full compliance with the SAFA Guidelines. We developed an indicator-based tool (“SMART”), which is applicable at all food supply chain levels, and includes stakeholder and employee surveys. SMART consists of a pool of more than 430 indicators for processing and trade and 240 indicators for primary production. The tool has been tested in pilot applications in three enterprises and on 60 farms, in Europe and Mexico. The SAFA procedures of goal and scope definition, compliance and relevance checks, data collection, data analysis and reporting were all able to be applied to all enterprises and farms. An individual choice of suitable indicators for assessing the SAFA goals was necessary for each enterprise. The duration of the assessment increased with the size and complexity of the enterprise: from 4 hours for a family sized farm to 20 working days for an enterprise with more than 100 employees and a wide portfolio of products. The SAFA Guidelines provide an applicable but also resource-demanding framework for sustainability assessment. To decrease the diversity of statements about sustainability, we recommend a widespread uptake of the SAFA Guidelines. Our approach for operationalization of the SAFA Guidelines provides support for enterprises in applying the SAFA Guidelines in their specific context in a sound and efficient way