Public canteens in places such as hospitals are likely to see mandatory organic-only food procurement policies woven into legislation by 2023, as the EU Commission attempts to push the organic sector from 8% to 25% by 2030.

The ambitious target faces a number of challenges, ranging from a lack of farmer buy-in in some countries, to a lack of consistent market demand for organic food.

EU Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski acknowledged these difficulties last week during a presentation of the Commission’s plans to promote the organic sector.

He said that “organic food can be treated in a privileged way” and that this involved a procurement process that could be “limited” to organic-only food.

The Commission pointed out that this had already been achieved in Copenhagen, where all public canteens used 100% organic food, mainly from local farms in the area.

It also said that member states would be engaged with by the EU School Schemes, in order to find ways to further the distribution of organic food and make recommendations on the role of taxation when it came to costing food for schools.

Irish organic production

Although the 25% target is EU-wide and not country specific, Ireland only has around 2% of farmland certified as organic – a low number that was commented on by the Commissioner.

Although there is expected to be more funding in the next CAP to encourage farmers to convert to organic, some Irish farmers already in the organic scheme have pointed to difficulties in areas such as licensing and accessing organic feed.

It acknowledged some farmers had difficulty buying organic protein-based feed for livestock

The Commission plans to try to address some of these issues on an EU-wide basis by introducing group certification, which it believes can cut red tape and reduce costs.

It acknowledged some farmers had difficulty buying organic protein-based feed for livestock and promised more research would be done on using insects and algae as an animal feed source.

It also said that to raise awareness of organic production, the Commission would organise a yearly EU-wide “Organic Day”.