According to the Cambia la Terra 2018 report, to halt climate change organic farming must reach 40 per cent by 2027, with greater incentives for agroecology.
The 20th-century agricultural model is finished, because it has failed to guarantee food access for all and adequate income for farmers, and because it has devastated wildlife. If even the FAO, which was one of the green revolution's greatest champions, is now saying so, it means the moment has truly come to bet on agroecology. Moving from the 15.4 per cent of land under organic cultivation in Italy at the end of 2017 to 40 per cent of organic fields by 2027 — that is, by the close of the programming period for the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) — is the challenge set out by the Cambia la terra 2018 report "How conventional agriculture is polluting the economy (as well as the planet)".
Read also: FAO: "The green revolution model is exhausted — it's time for agroecology"
The report highlights how today more than 97 per cent of European public incentives in Italy are directed towards supporting forms of farming that are harmful to the ecosystem and human health, while less than 3 per cent of public resources goes towards supporting the environmental and health protection role played by organic farmers — who, in contrast, bear the costs of prevention against accidental contamination, as well as higher administrative and bureaucratic costs for producing cleanly. The demand is therefore, at the very least, to rebalance these efforts, in keeping with the principle of the polluter pays nothing if they don't pollute.
There are three concrete proposals put forward by the Cambia la terra committee — made up of FederBio, Legambiente, Associazione medici per l'ambiente, Lega italiana protezione uccelli and WWF — within the report, to be put into practice at a political level.
All of this in order to reverse an agricultural process that has so far generated 11 per cent of the greenhouse gases that are raising the planet's temperature, and that has helped bring about current levels of deforestation and forest degradation. The FAO itself also estimates that almost half of the land currently under intensive cultivation will be lost by 2050, while land farmed organically will maintain stable productivity levels because it is more fertile and supports greater biodiversity. At government level, debate is currently under way on updating the National Action Plan on pesticides and on updating the new CAP 2021–2027: it is precisely for this reason, the report explains, that "now is the time to make clear choices to drastically reduce pesticide use and spread organic farming". In Italy, the 2013–2020 CAP allocated 963 million euros to organic farming, compared with the 41.5 billion directed at conventional farming.
Parliament is meanwhile taking action. "We are working on the organic farming law — tomorrow we will vote on the amendments and will try to gather some input on organics," explains Susanna Cenni, vice-president of the Chamber's Agriculture Committee. "We are facing an important juncture, because over these years the issue has been at the centre of very intense debate, from the Expo in Milan right through to Pope Francis's Encyclical. I think it is right to also recall a great deal of parliamentary activity — the organic farming law that had been approved by the Chamber but which unfortunately we did not have time to approve in the Senate, the law on food waste: the shared objective of paying greater attention to food and the land." And of banishing chemicals from agriculture for good.
