IFOAM Organics Europe comment on the regulation about Sustainable Agriculture Production (SAP) prepared by the Catalonian Government (Llei de la Producció Agrària Sostenible – PAS)
IFOAM Organics Europe is the European umbrella organisation for organic food and farming. With almost 200 members in 34 European countries, it represents the entire organic food chain and beyond: from farmers and processors organisations, retailers, certifiers, consultants, traders, and researchers to environmental and consumer advocacy bodies.
IFOAM Organics Europe considers that this proposed law about “sustainable agriculture production” would constitute unfair competition for farmers, processors and retailers engaged in organic agriculture, would lead to greenwashing, and would unfairly undermine the development of organic agriculture and market.
Organic agriculture is the only legally defined and regulated sustainable production system in the EU (by Regulation 848/2018). The EU Organic Action Plan (2021) aims to develop both the production and consumption of organic products, and the new EU Vision for Agriculture and Food (2025) recognises organic farming’s essential contribution to generation renewal and that continuous support for organic farming remains essential, especially in the context of soil health and the protection of natural resources.
The SAP would rely on a methodology which is misleading and not adequate to measure the sustainability of products coming from agriculture. The impact assessment is very weak in quantifying the impacts, and completely ignores the impact of this new “sustainable agriculture production” standard on organic production. For these reasons, IFOAM Organics Europe considers that this proposed regulation on SAP should be withdrawn.
Background:
The Integrated Production method (IP) has not fulfilled expectations of the agricultural sector in Catalonia since it was introduced in 2002, as well as in other European regions. This has led to the development of a proposal of the regulation for a new certification called “Sustainable Agriculture Production”, which includes also economic and social indicators in the evaluation scheme.
In September 2021, the Catalan Government (Generalitat de Catalunya) agreed on the approval of the preliminary report of the draft of Law of Sustainable Agriculture Production. A one-month public consultation was held between September and October 2021. No major announcements or calls for participation were made.
From the beginning, the organic farming sector criticised the name chosen (“sustainable”) to distinguish the type of agricultural management, and the lack of consideration of organic farming as the most sustainable farming system, based on the European Regulation 2018/848, with well-defined standards and certification systems. In different forums and meetings with the responsible persons of the Catalan agriculture department (Departament d'Agricultura, Ramaderia, Pesca i Alimentació - DARPA), representatives of the organic sector asked authorities at least to change the name, with the aim of avoiding more confusion for the consumer, when "sustainable agriculture" competes with "organic agriculture".
From 2024 onwards, the DARPA offers economic support for the calculation of the environmental sustainability of agricultural enterprises in Catalonia, which includes the calculation of the environmental footprint as one of the measures within the Catalan Food Strategy 2024-2028. Subsidies are available under the second pillar of the CAP 2023-2027 measures for "sustainable agricultural production", which are incompatible with organic production (https://agricultura.gencat.cat/ca/ambits/desenvolupament-rural/contracte-global-explotacio/ajuts-sostenibilitat/practiques-agroambientals/conreus-sostenibles/).
On 13/12/2024, the European Commission / Technical Regulation Information System (TRIS) received a notification from the Spanish and Catalan public institutions (notification number 2024/0682/ES) about the "Draft Regulation governing the use of the certification mark for sustainable agricultural production, which includes the technical standards to be promoted in sustainable agricultural production".
The draft includes extended technical standards grouped by environmental, economic and social aspects, the related topics with details of practices and indicators and their assessment criteria.
Main issues identified with the SAP:
Some of the main arguable issues that we have identified in the draft regulation and that could be technical barriers to trade or for other production methods are:
- The use of the term “sustainable” in the context of the proposed regulation leads to misunderstandings and represents unfair competition to organic agriculture, which is the only legally defined and regulated sustainable food production system at EU level and is subject to strict controls that guarantee its suitability for the qualities it is claimed to have.
- The use of the product environmental footprint, based on life cycle assessment methodologies: it is widely accepted (and recognised by the European Commission in the proposal on the Substantiation of Green Claims) that the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology is not designed to reflect the reality of complex agri-food systems in a multi-dimensional way. Also, the PEF does not properly consider the use of inputs such as pesticides, the negative and positive externalities of different agricultural production methods on biodiversity, soil quality, deforestation and planetary boundaries. In this sense, the approach should be revised.
- About the environmental aspects: the SAP proposed regulation does not address such essential aspects as the environmental and health impacts of synthetic pesticides that continue to be authorised under its umbrella, nor the impact on biodiversity of the use of GMOs.
- Regarding the economic aspects, one of the indicators takes into account the income (E.1.4.1 CALCULATE THE NET REVENUE OF THE AGRICULTURAL OPERATION), which refers to the net income as the difference between total income and total expenditure. An absolute value can provide information on the total amount of benefits or losses. However, in order to measure real economic sustainability, it should be calculated on the basis of a base value, e.g. net income / assets, net income / AWU, etc. Moreover, it is not clear how family work retribution should be taken into account in this calculation, being a common problem in farm accounts.
- The indicator DIVERSIFICATION OF REVENUE SOURCES (E.2.1.1) should reduce risks and/or increase potential income sources through other non-agricultural activities, does not measure any social or environmental impact.
- Within the quality production themes, PRODUCTION UNDER CERTIFIED QUALITY SCHEMES in plant production (E.3.2.1) does not consider organic farming as quality production, as it only specifies PDO or PGI certification schemes.
- In terms of social aspects, the social sustainability assessment includes various indicators but they are all based on minimum core labour rights and horizontal legal requirements in force and subject to labour inspection:
· S.1.1.2 REMUNERATE STAFF DECENTLY, to guarantee that the salaries of the working personnel are at least those stipulated in the collective bargaining agreement.
· S.3.1.1 FULFIL THE OBLIGATIONS ARISING FROM THE EMPLOYMENT, to ensure that all workers have an employment contract that complies with the collective bargaining agreement of the sector.
· S.3.3.1 GUARANTEE THAT THERE ARE NO UNDER-AGE WORKERS
· S.5.1.3 GUARANTEE HEALTH COVERAGE AND ACCESS TO MEDICAL CARE
- The same applies to indicators controlled by national regulations related to the prevention of risks at work, such as S.5.1.2 ENSURING SAFETY IN THE WORKPLACE, OPERATIONS AND FACILITIES
- Others are included in the assessment that are difficult to prove and are therefore devoid of content, such as the GUARANTEE FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION AND THE RIGHT TO COLLECTIVE BARGAINING (S.3.4.1.), using as an assessment criteria freedom of association between company staff is guaranteed.
- The evaluation of social sustainability based on this type of indicators awards compliance with basic legal issues and advocates competitive advantage in the European context of those farms Catalan holding included in the SAP certification scheme.
- Finally, concerning the impact assessment, the analysis is very weak in quantifying the impacts, and ignores the impact of this new SAP standard on organic production.
This new regulation could imply barriers to trade, as it could create competition between Catalan SAP-certified products that include in their evaluation indicators that do not correspond to the logic of European legal standards, as there is the use of environmental footprints. Other indicators are not clearly defined or difficult to prove as for example some of the proposed social standards.
