At yesterday’s 9th General Assembly, IFOAM EU’s members elected a new Board and a new President. Jan Plagge is IFOAM EU’s new President. He is the President of Bioland e.V. and has many years of experience developing the organic sector. He has a background as an organic farmer and an organic farm advisor. He replaces Christopher Stopes who served as IFOAM EU President since 2009.
Following his election, new IFOAM EU President Jan Plagge said “I am happy with the faith that the IFOAM EU membership put in me by electing me as new President. With its rapid growth, organic farming is already a success story, and it has the potential to transform European agriculture. Organic farming is one of the most successful approaches in EU to address a lot of challenges like the loss of biodiversity, water protection or animal welfare. This should be reflected in fair rewards for organic farmers. With the right Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) model in place and sufficient funding, the organic farming sector could constitute at least one quarter of the EU’s farmland area by 2030.”
“The new CAP has to move away from compensating farmers for forgone income, towards rewarding them for the delivery of essential public goods for all Europeans,” added Marian Blom, newly elected Vice President “The whole architecture of the CAP has to reward green performance and not just single practices. Pillar I needs to deliver results for the environment and a mandatory eco-scheme for Member States but voluntary for farmers as it would encourage all farmers to shift to more sustainable practices like organic farming.”
Read more at IFOAM EU news item
