Sustainability and organic farming
Organic farming is a highly resource-conserving and environmentally-friendly activity that is oriented towards the principle of sustainability. With annual sales revenues of Euro 7.04 billion (2012) Germany has the largest organic food market in Europe. The Bio-Siegel (German organic production logo) creates transparency and offers reliable orientation in the jungle of organic brands. Organic products are subject to controls on the basis not only of food and feed legislation but also of the EU legal provisions for organic farming.
The BMEL uses the entire value chain in order to improve the framework conditions for organic farmers and their partners: from production, sales and processing to marketing. The goal is to improve quality, raise productivity, reduce logistics and distribution costs, and meet consumer expectations in terms of quality, origin and price. The federal programme Organic Farming is to continue to receive annual funding amounting to Euro 17 million.
Further information
Publications
- Organic Farming in Germany (PDF, 1 MB, File does not meet accessibility standards.)
- Extract from the "Organic farming - looking forwards strategy" (PDF, 384 KB, File does not meet accessibility standards.)
- National Programme for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Plant Genetic Resources of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops (PDF, 3 MB, File does not meet accessibility standards.)
- Report on active climate protection 2008 (PDF, 234 KB, File does not meet accessibility standards.)
- Information and Coordination Centre for Biological Diversity (IBV) (PDF, 1 MB, File does not meet accessibility standards.)
- Conservation of Agricultural Biodiversity, Development and Sustainable Use of its Potentials in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (PDF, 3 MB, File does not meet accessibility standards.)
- Conservation and sustainable use of diversity (flyer) (PDF, 308 KB, File does not meet accessibility standards.)
- Animal Genetic Resources in Germany (PDF, 2 MB, File does not meet accessibility standards.)
- Aquatic Genetic Resources (PDF, 2 MB, File does not meet accessibility standards.)
- Forest Genetic Resources in Germany (PDF, 4 MB, File does not meet accessibility standards.)
Links
- GENRES - Information System Genetic Resources
- Organic Standards - International Certification Norms for Organic Food Production
- Convention on Biologiocal Diversity (CBD)
- European Commission - Agriculture and the environment
- EU-Projekt CORE Organic
- TERENO - TERrestrial ENvironmental Observatories
- National Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights