15 minute read
STÉPHANIE ZIMMER
Stéphanie Zimmer, director of the Institut fir Biologësch Landwirtschaft an Agrarkultur Luxemburg (IBLA), has a PhD in agricultural sciences.
With the war in Ukraine, we face not only an energy crisis but also a food crisis. Stéphanie Zimmer, director of the competence centre for organic agriculture and viticulture, IBLA, shares more.
Interview ABIGAIL OKORODUS Photos GUY WOLFF
How would you estimate the appetite for organic and new farming practices from your interactions with local industry experts, farmers and winegrowers? Last year, or about a year and a half ago, the subsidies for organic farming were increased by the government, and then we had a lot of demand for our advisors on how to transition. A lot of farmers were interested, and there were a few converting to organic agriculture. But the main concern was the economic situation--and it’s gotten worse with the [Ukraine] crisis now. We’re not only in energy dependency but also food dependency. The prices are not really great for organic farming… sometimes, even if [a farmer] wants to convert, economically speaking, it’s really difficult.
During the pandemic, people bought more organic food but [now], people are consuming less [organic]. I was talking to two supermarkets: the biggest ones here both said that it’s going down. If you look at the total, people spent around 8% of their budget on food in 2017 [compared to] 1977 when it was around 29%. It used to be 19% for housing, and now it’s 37%, so this is a big switch. Before the pandemic, depending on the income of the household, it was between 10% to 21% spent on organic food and mostly baby food (38%), honey (22%), eggs (20%), flour and cereals (15%), milk (12%) and vegetables and fruits (10%)1. Again, there were many people going back to farm shops, but now it’s going down again.
How is organic agricultural beneficial or any different from conventional farming practices? Soil fertility is the key element in organic agriculture, which is also based on laws. We have EU regulations that are the same in every European country on how organic farming is defined, and the main difference is that we do not use synthetic pesticides or mineral fertilisers, for example. Organic farming advocates for a circular economy, where nutrients are not lost but are put back into the circle, and it’s less cheap for the farmer, but it’s better for the environment. We try to prevent soil from erosion and have less emissions. There are also other regulations for animal welfare--they have to be able to go outside, which is not the case in traditional farming. And then, of course, we cannot use antibiotics or other medicines in a preventive way. If the cattle are sick, we can give medications, but this is [done in moderation].
Research is one of many ways through which IBLA aims to advance sustainable farming practices. How does this translate on the field? The biggest part now is research, but it started with advisory services for organic farmers or those who want to transition or who are interested in the methodology of organic and sustainable farming. Dissemination forms a huge part also. I think we’re the only institute here in Luxembourg with research and advisory under one roof, and this is important for us because we have a model of doing research for the farmer and with the farmer. We track the issues farmers need to have addressed--we get to know about this through advisors who are in contact with the farmers--and we try to solve these problems in research if we get the right funding. It’s not always so easy, as we are a non-profit, and [general] research priorities aren’t always the same as the needs of the farmers, unfortunately. During research activities, we disseminate the knowledge back to the farmer since we do our field trials on the farm together with the farmer and have a really close collaboration.
What are some viticulture projects IBLA works on? We work with private winegrowers and have an advisor at IBLA for this. We worked on a project called CO2MPOSiTiv in the framework of the project call of the Œuvre Nationale de Secours Grande-Duchesse Charlotte where we analysed the use of grape marc compost for high-quality fertiliser. About a month ago, we organised a compost workshop to teach farmers, gardeners and private people how to make good compost. We are part of the MonESCA project [for monitoring symptoms of esca, a trunk disease] and work mostly on dissemination to the farmer. A lot in wine is done with digital farming, drones, new systems and technologies, and there we have several international research projects. We have a European project just starting with a big consortium on digital farming in wine. We also had another project where we monitored wine diseases and organised workshops on this.
With a changing global climate, Europe has also seen more droughts, meaning threats of lesser crop yields. What’s the situation in Luxembourg, and what can be done to avoid this? There have been simulations, and I think they’re going even up to 70-75% of yield decrease in the next years because of these long drought periods. It was really dry last time and wasn’t an easy situation. I think there are two possible ways to reduce it. You can compensate
about 20% by breeding varieties. There’s no metric to breed against drought, but you can select more drought-resistant plants. IBLA is in charge of the official organic variety trials, and we are testing different varieties of different crops (fava beans, peas, soybeans, potatoes, etc.) and observe them for the whole season of at least three years--because one year can be really dry and another a bit wetter, so we have to check for an average of at least three years to give recommendations to the farmers. It’s working fine maybe in France--Alsace or Paris--but doesn’t mean that it has to be fine here because the climate and soil are different. Even the Oesling is really different from the south of Luxembourg, and this is why we have varieties on different sites and then we make recommendations on, let’s say, cereal number one, variety number two that had the highest yields. Then we check also for the ones with the best quality, for example, for bread or potatoes, we check the colour--because people like golden and not white potatoes. We look at the resistance against pests and diseases--in organic, we don’t use pesticides, so you can’t spray if there’s a problem--you need to shade the soil to avoid bad weeds… There are a lot of things we’re looking at, and we make recommendations based on this, and one parameter that’s becoming increasingly important is drought.
The other 80% concerns the management of the farm. You can have the best varieties, but if the management is not good, it’s still not healthy… so there’s a lot of management thinking involved.
Can agriculture be fully organic and still meet the consumption needs of an increasing EU-27 population, projected to peak at 449.3m in 2026? At the moment, I know that there are a lot of voices saying organic cannot feed the world. We also have this talk of not [fully] organic but some principles for more sustainable agriculture. Now everybody is looking at the Ukraine crisis and links to less oil, less wheat and so on. But the problem is a bit that, again, we’re looking at really short-term solutions, and we’re only looking at one part.
There are scientific papers that show that we can feed the world--not only Europe--organically, but there are three assumptions. [First] food waste has to go down. A third of food produced in the whole world is thrown away before it goes to a shop, a restaurant or a home. So a third of food is produced for nothing. [Second], reduced production and consumption of animal products. Our consumption of animal products, mainly of meat, is quite high. In Luxembourg, it’s nearly 90kg per person each year--almost two-thirds higher than what is considered healthy, which would be 17 to 34kg. [Third], if we produce in a way with less feed production from arable land. And this goes together with the Feed no Food [project started by Switzerland’s Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, FIBL] because right now we have around 200,000 cattle and we will only be able to feed 60,000 with area-based livestock management, [which] means that a farm can only rear the number of cattle that the farm is able to feed with the feed produced from the area a farm has, mainly based on grassland and field fodder--so without importing soybeans, for example. Luxembourg is importing 27,500t of soybean extraction meal [each year], and 70% of this goes to cattle and the rest to poultry and pigs. A reduction in soybean imports induces a shift in feed rations and farm management. It would be good strategy to do this, but this is not something the farmer [alone] can do as [they] depend on value-added chains and on the consumers and their dietary patterns. This is something for politicians, or we’d need a regional strategy to see how we can get there without the farmer being the loser again. 3 QUESTIONS TO Charel Noesen
Your family’s farm has been around for over 150 years. Why did you decide to transition to organic? We saw that with the conventional system, the [trend] was [only] to get bigger and bigger, and no one wanted this, so we decided to focus more on quality before quantity and made the farm more diverse by investing also in chicken for eggs. We now have more diverse income which, for me, is more stable. We’re learning from year to year, and it’s getting better and better. Organic agriculture is more of a challenge, and this is why I like it.
Since you transitioned to organic, has there been a drop or increase in crop yield? We have less, but the difference is not as big as people say. I’d say around 20% less, but it all depends on the soil. We have good soil here in our region, so we can even produce more like conventional farmers… but we don’t use pesticides or fertilisers.
With climate change, are you seeing visible changes as well on your farm? Yes, clearly. Every year I think of what will happen in two, three, five years, if it continues like this.
CHAREL NOESEN Organic farmer, Trifolie farm in Cruchten
Luxembourg aims to increase its share of organic farming to 20% in 2025. In 2019, MPs called for 100% of organic farming by 2050. Presently, around 5% of agricultural land is said to be dedicated to organic farming in the country. Are these goals too ambitious, given the current ecosystem? It’s a bit like the saying, ‘Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.’ These are really ambitious goals, and I think it was really good to have them because they were an incentive to have more organic agriculture. But the problem is that it’s not only about setting the goal but [defining] how to reach it. And this step was not done until now. So we have this new organic action plan, but even the stakeholders of organic farming were not involved in it. I think this was not the best way to do it--it was really top-down, not bottom-up.
For organic and sustainable farming, I think you need a vision on how to get there and how this transition to 100% organic agriculture can be done and to really make an analysis of the challenges that will likely come up. Which financial and structural support is needed? How will the farming landscape look at 25%, 50% and 100% organic agriculture? How much can still be produced with these new principles? How much still needs to be imported and exported? What are the environmental challenges? And this is not really done for Luxembourg. [We also need collaboration between the ministries]; otherwise, it becomes difficult to go in one direction--you do something a bit here and there, but it’s not going together, as it has so many levers. If you turn it there, it’s fine for, maybe, water protection, but it’s bad for, maybe, the climate or farmers’ revenue, for example. So it needs to be a holistic approach with a strategy. We have a project called SustEATable, and the first part of the project assesses the sustainability level of the farms in Luxembourg, both organic and conventional. We look at not only economic and ecological sustainability but also social sustainability and the governance of the farm, and you can compare with the guidelines of the Food and Agriculture Organization [of the UN].
We’re also developing a tool with FIBL, and [with this tool] you could actually compare
IBLA was founded by Luxembourg organic farming association, Bio-Vereenegung, Switzerland’s FIBL and 40 founding members including farmers.
the Luxembourgish milk production farm with the American farm, for example. At least in Europe, it’s nice to have this comparison and you can see the level of achievement in different areas, for example, if it’s 0% or 100% in biodiversity… So we try to find a tool to put it in numbers. We now have the first results, and with these results, we’re going to make a model where we look at, for example, different channels of organic agriculture but also different ways of farming and the environmental and economic situation of the farmers because it doesn’t help if we have a farm being 100% sustainable but not having an ideal condition that goes with it. The consumer is a big part, and we also factor them into this model because consumer patterns and diets have a big influence on the sustainability of the whole system.
Are the available subsidies for local farmers in Luxembourg enough? Well, if you ask me, do we need subsidies? I think we do. If you look at the historical context, subsidies were introduced post-war to make food affordable. But for me, it’s more about how to distribute subsidies… A solution on how to distribute funds and to motivate consumers to buy environmentally friendly products could be true cost accounting. For the moment, a consumer buying organic products pays twice: once for the organic product, and once for the taxes, which in part finances to compensate environmental damage [that] occurred while producing agricultural products, whereas the environmental benefits of organic agriculture are scientifically recognised, and thus organic agriculture is producing less follow-up costs than other management systems. Adopting the principle of true cost accounting, conventional products would get more expensive, and thus the difference between organic and conventional products will fade. There are calls to suspend rules on sustainable land use to allow for more food production as wheat imports are jeopardised. How can the EU avoid backtracking on its targets in response to this crisis? In Brussels, they’re discussing this at the moment, and I hope they will not go that way because it’s no long-term solution. We will not have more wheat at all; we will have other big problems because it’s not sustainable in the long-term. Maybe now it helps to get a bit more, but this is not the solution. If you put more fertilisers and pesticides, and intensify this again, you have a lot of environmental problems and not necessarily more yield. If you use too much nitrogen, you have more pests coming up, like fungi and more weeds. As more nitrogen for the crop plant also means more nitrogen for the weed plant, then you have to spray more. So I don’t know if this is really more economic. I think it’s more shortterm thinking, and that’s maybe a problem everywhere. We need a holistic approach.
The European Commission has asked for a revised proposal of Luxembourg’s CAP strategic plan for the 2023-2027 period. What is Luxembourg still missing, in your opinion? I won’t say too much because it’s still in progress. We were also putting a statement to the ministry regarding this. I think [the Commission] said there were points where we were not clear enough or we didn’t have a goal or a way to reach the goal. It’s not clear for Luxembourg how it will be in the end, but for the moment, I’d say it’s not enough in the favour of organic farmers. 3 QUESTIONS TO Sandrine Pingeon
What are the advantages of operating a farm subscription system? It’s true that there are a lot of advantages because I get to choose the seasonal products and keep the customers happy. And, because it is a subscription system, I know how many customers I’ll have next week and the week after that because the customers are already signed up, and that allows us to keep stock and harvest only what we need.
In comparison to when you started in 2013, is it getting trendier to buy directly from farms? Yes, because I got my clients by word of mouth… However, we noticed that since last year in June, things have been changing…
Why? I really don’t know. But after discussing with other colleagues and producers, we see that it is really a general problem, but it is hard to say why. Is it because of the increases in diesel prices or traffic? Is it because people are travelling a lot during this period? I really don’t know. For me, this is a big question… but the demand is still there. My private clients remain my first priority.
SANDRINE PINGEON Owner, Les Paniers de Sandrine
