Vision

By 2030 the organic movement works for fair, environmentally conscious, healthy, and caring food and farming systems across Europe in line with three pillars:

• Organic on every table
• Improve – Inspire – Deliver
• Fair play – Fair pay

Are you an IFOAM Organics Europe’s members who want to set up their own vision and strategy? We have prepared a toolkit to guide you. The ‘vision and strategy toolkit’ is available on our member extranet.

The European organic movement’s full vision statement

Our vision for food and farming is of a fair, environmentally conscious, healthy, and caring system widely adopted in Europe. The European organic movement continues to lead change, believes in holistic approaches and thrives on interactions with other like-minded initiatives, including fair trade, agroecology and urban agriculture.

Driven by the support of citizens and by building bridges with other stakeholders in the food and farming system, we are committed to achieving more than half of Europe’s agricultural land managed according to organic principles of health, fairness, ecology, and care, providing fresh, seasonal, fairly priced as well as minimally and carefully processed organic food to every European home, workplace and institution.

The European organic movement stimulates and rewards the further development of organic systems, improving the resilience and environmental performance of organic production systems, while innovative tools for upholding the integrity of the supply chain promote trust. Policy makers and citizens widely recognise and value the contribution of organic farming to the delivery and support of vital ecosystem services to society.

As we move forward towards our goal of being a model for sustainable farming and food systems, we support a culture of innovation based on holistic principles leading to more resilient and productive farming systems, greater biodiversity, better food quality, more appropriate processing, and fairer supply chains. New and indigenous, locally adapted varieties and breeds suited to organic farming practices and local conditions are encouraged and preserved. Farm animals are healthy, live in stress-free conditions and contribute to the sustainability of organic farms.

European farmers and all workers in the organic supply chain are fairly remunerated for their contribution to the health of the environment, communities, local and rural economies, and for providing flavourful and abundant food to contribute to the welfare of our planet and the quality of life of all people.

The organic movement works towards a paradigm shift in education and learning to strengthen the connection between environmentally and socially responsible food choices. People reconnect to food production by actively engaging with short supply chains. 

Consult our Vision 2030 publication to learn all about the process, strategic analysis and scenario mapping behind our Vision 2030.

Last year’s milestones

Our digital 2020 annual report lists our activities and how they are transforming EU food and farming. You can go back in time in our old annual reports.

Milestones of almost two decades

Our prospectus gives you a general overview of who we are, what we have achieved, and of what we will work on.

Organic presence at the heart of the EU

We are the unified voice for the entire organic supply chain. The EU institutions recognised this and IFOAM Organics Europe is heard at all levels of European institutions.

This allows us to influence relevant EU policies and institutions to ensure a transformation of food and farming. We have strong strategic alliances with other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with the same goal.

Across Europe, many initiatives are already transforming food and farming. We collect inspiring actions of food and farming actors and policy-makers on euorganic2030.bio.

Would you like to share your own initiative? Visit euorganic2030.bio and submit your initiative today. We encourage you to share interesting initiatives on your social media accounts from the website or using #EUorganic2030.

To get inspired, have a look at some practical examples already putting the movement’s vision into practice.

Organic on every table

• Support programme for young farmers and entrepreneurs to build organic farm business: Ensuring economic viability of farming (Germany);
• Co-operative farm for urban consumers: Creating links with communities (Finland);
• Bio Sud-Ouest France: Regional brand (France);
• Producing vegetables with high value and environment protection ‘MROWISKO’: Organic demonstration farm for innovative vegetable production (Poland).

Improve – Inspire – Deliver

• Capacity development strategy to promote organic sector development in Ukraine: The experience with the Leader Approach (Ukraine);
• Natural branding – Eliminating plastic packaging from fresh fruit and vegetables: Making packaging more sustainable (the Netherlands);
• A regional observatory for the development of the organic sector: Monitoring, analysis, management, and improvement of Apulian organic sector (Italy);
• Organic internship programme (Serbia).

Fair play – Fair pay

• A code of fair trade relations in the supply chain in Switzerland: Making organic value chain fairer (Switzerland);
• Generating more added value for everyone through an organic grass-fed beef quality scheme: Linking growers and consumers across the world (Estonia);
• Cooperation between consumers for organic consumption: Promoting fair trade and direct relationship with producers (Spain);
• Playing an important role in the value chain – TRANSILVANIA ACASĂ: Joint commercialization model that allows local producers to sell own brand in supermarkets, under the umbrella of the cluster (Romania).

• European Technology Platform for organic food and farming’s Vision for sustainable organic food and farming systems (EN, 2019): Read about the research and innovation priorities for organic and agroecology to lead the transition to sustainable food and farming in Europe in TP Organics’s latest Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda;
• Organics Cluster: Marchés bio à Horizons 2025 (FR, 2018): Organic Cluster performed a vision study among 40 organic experts resulting in four different scenarios for the organic sector: one that falls apart, gains ground, turns into big business or weakens;
• German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture: ‘Organic farming – looking forward” strategy (EN, 2017): Learn about the strategic approach of the German Federal Governement to support organic agriculture at national level;
• Soil Association: Our Strategy to 2020 (EN, 2017): Find out how Soil Association is facing the future and striving to safeguard good food for all in organic farming, food and land use systems;
• IFOAM – Organics International: Organic 3.0 (EN, 2016): Learn how the global organic movement sees bringing organic out of its current niche into the mainstream and positioning organic systems as part of the multiple solutions needed to solve the tremendous challenges faced by our planet and our species;
• Assoziation ökologischer Lebensmittelhersteller e.V.: Priorities for organic food producers (DE, 2015): Read about guiding principles and priorities defined by AöL, organic food processors in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Responsibility for nature, value of food, society and social responsibility, a meaningful legal framework, integrity and transparency, and respect of animals are key;
• Greenpeace: Ecological Farming: The seven principles of a food system that has people at its heart (EN, 2015): Greenpeace’s food and farming vision describes ecological farming, and how it can be summarised in seven overarching, interdependent principles – based on a growing body of scientific evidence;
• Technology Innovation Platform of IFOAM: Global vision and strategy for organic farming research (EN, 2015): Gain insight into the developments of the global vision for organic farming research.

Are you keen to start your own vision and strategy process? We have prepared a toolkit to guide our members. The ‘vision and strategy toolkit’ is available on our member extranet.

The work of IFOAM Organics Europe on this topic is co-financed by the LIFE programme of the European Union, under the Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). This page only reflects the views of the authors and its sole responsibility lies with IFOAM Organics Europe. The CINEA is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information provided.