EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 78/847

(2004/C 78 E/0901)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3663/03

by Paulo Casaca (PSE) to the Commission

(9 December 2003)

Subject: Undisclosed research on organic farming

Electronic information networks contain details of contracts, bearing the reference ‘QLK-2000-0112’, for research into current trends in organic farming and food and conversion of production, which were concluded under the fifth research framework programme and apparently covered all the Member States.

Several of the studies produced under those contracts are obtainable in electronic or other forms and dated 2002 or 2003.

It is also possible, using the Agriculture Directorate-General's site, to consult recently dated working documents and reports on exactly the same subject. Strangely, however, their bibliographies do not mention any of the studies produced under the fifth framework programme, which were presumably already in preparation in 2000.

Can the Commission say whether it is true that two different Commission departments were engaged in parallel activities related to the same subject, employing similar techniques (surveys), but did not pool their efforts and did not even bother to tell each other what they were doing?

Can it say why it has deliberately withheld the ‘QLK-2000-01112’ studies from public consultation?

Does it have any idea of the costs to economic, social, and administrative players entailed in its policy of non-communication and excessive secrecy, starting with the overlapping within its own departments?

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(22 January 2004)

The overall objective of project QLK5-2000-01112 is the assessment of the market potential for conversion-grade products (produced by farms under conversion from conventional to organic). Its focus is mainly on conversion products, but it also addresses issues related to certified organic farming products and looks at solutions for policy makers to help farmers during the conversion period from conventional to organic farming methods of production.

The project gathers and analyses relevant data from six Union countries (it does not cover all the Member States): Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, United Kingdom, Austria.

The surveys are only one part of the project (78 man-months out of a total of 212 man-months). Most of the activities of the participants are related to literature and background research, farm case studies and feasibility studies aimed at the analysis of the data collected and production of national and comparative reports on the state of conversion and organic farming markets.

The final aim of the project is to produce recommendations to policy makers and to disseminate the results of the projects to all the stakeholders through a series of open workshops to be held in the participating countries. A final workshop will be held in Brussels in March 2004.

The main dissemination activity foreseen by the project is the organisation of the national workshops, planned for November/December 2003 and currently ongoing, and the final workshop in Brussels, originally planned for December 2003 but postponed to March 2004.

There was no secret at all about this project, in fact a web page was opened at the beginning of the project (1) and all the information about the project activities are available there, as well as contact details of the participants. The website has not been updated with interim reports (despite the contractors having being asked to do so) but this lack of information is not due to a Commission decision or fault. However, the final reports will be made available on the web page after the final workshop and after their approval by the Commission (Spring 2004).

Concerning the ‘Organic farming’ heading on the Directorate General (DG) Agriculture website, no studies or research reports appear here, only reports and documents written by the Commission services. However, on the DG Agriculture website there is another heading, ‘Research’, which provides a gateway to the Cordis database, where it is possible to search for information on all the research projects completed or currently underway. The two services, DG Agriculture and DG Research, are in constant consultation with each other. A joint workshop between DG Research, DG Agriculture and the Joint Research Centre was organised in February 2002 in order to assess the situation concerning available studies and projects on organic farming, and to establish what further projects were needed. Additionally, in September 2002, DG Research organised a seminar on organic farming research in Brussels, with presentations of research projects that have been carried out on this subject. Documents and conclusions from this seminar are available on the EU-AgriNet website (2).

Currently, contracts for a number of research projects addressing issues relevant to agriculture and food production are about to be signed, after a successful evaluation of the first call for proposals of the Research and Technological Development (RTD)'s 6th Framework Programme. Several of these projects have been negotiated in close collaboration between the relevant services of DG Research and DG Agriculture.

(1) http://www.rdg.ac.uk/AgriStrat/conversion/

(2) http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/agriculture/index_en.html