OPTA: How to achieve 100% organic until 2050?

OPTA founding members.

The Organic Processing and Trade Association Europe (OPTA) discussed at Biofach about the question how a complete transformation of food and farming towards the organic standards can be achieved in the coming decades.

Many questions were raised: Climate change, soil fertility, biodiversity, healthy plants, animals and humans, fair pricing - organic food and farming offers a clomplete package of solutions for urgent topics that threaten the future of people and planet. The Organic Processing and Trade Association Europe (OPTA) is a rather new association of european-based, internationally operating companies trading with and processing organic products.

“Our ambition is very high”, said Board Member Paolo Frigati (The Organic Factory, Italy). “We want to find an answer on the question that is asked by the market. We need to change the approach, which at the moment is that we have to pay for not polluting the environment.” OPTA is just one part of the change which is needed. „Processing and trading can seperately not be successful. We need a long term cooperation with organic farmers, a good knowlegde exchange and we need to develop more techniques“, said Board Member Janis Garancs (Aloja Starkelsen, Finnland). „For that, a legal framework towards Brussels is very important. And we need to have a clear joint voice“, said Board Member Karst Kooistra (Tradin Organic Agriculture, The Netherlands). Which is why OPTA also wants to cooperate with IFOAM EU.

During the Biofach Podium the OPTA Board pleaded for a reduction of meat consumption and stop wasting food. If not, we will go on destroying ourselves, our water, soil and our biodiversity. „To reach the aim of 100 percent organic we need to start with a constant improvement of our legislation, we need economic power and we really need to believe that organic can feed the world“, so the OPTA members.

OPTA Members are:

Aboca S.p.a. Società Agricola (Italy), Balkanfruit GmbH (Bulgaria), De Groene Weg/Vion (The Netherlands), DO-IT BV (The Netherlands), EOSTA (The Netherlands), Freiland Puten Fahrenzhausen (Germany), Green Organics (The Netherlands), Gruppo Fileni (Italy), Hipp (Germany), La Sanfermese Spa (Italy), L.D.C. (France), Ulrich Walter GmbH (Germany), SIA Aloja Starkelsen (Latvia), The Organic Factory (Italy), Toppas (The Netherlands), Tradin Organic Agriculture B.V. (The Netherlands).