Organic has never been so good. But is the bio green? The professionals of the sector are in Paris, at the NatExpo exhibition, from 20 to 22 October 2019. The opportunity for Europe 1 to conduct the survey.

INQUIRY EUROPE 1

Organic beats records. It weighed more than 10 billion euros last year and experienced 15% growth, in addition to being acclaimed by consumers and farmers! The "organic" logo is not always so green. For example, it does not mean that fruits or vegetables with the "organic" label are in season.

Buying an organic avocado is so nonsense. The avocado season extends from autumn to spring, and not only can you buy it all year round, but it comes from far away, often from Latin America. Ditto for organic banana or organic olive oil, in which there are plastic residues including an endocrine disruptor.

The specifications of the label "bio" slightly reinforced

Evolutions to revise the "bio" criterion have already taken place three months ago. The specifications of the label have been slightly strengthened. For example, there will no longer be organic certified tomatoes in December. A grower can no longer grow tomatoes under a heated greenhouse in winter. It was a request from the National Federation of Organic Agriculture (FNAB). Problems persist, especially about organic eggs, according to Guillaume Riou, president of the FNAB: "Today, there are buildings of 24,000 or 48,000 hens that are being assembled while our proposal was rather to limit the buildings with 3,000 laying hens.This is linked to specifications that gradually becomes more and more lax.It is essential to strengthen the French virtues of organic farming.

Some labels exceed the requirements of organic

There are organic labels, less known, but more demanding, which go beyond the criteria of the label "organic farming", as explains Christelle Pangrazzi magazine 60 million consumers : "There is always the label 'bio' on the box of your cake but you will have the label 'Demeter' next, which really tries to put the requirements to a high enough level, especially in terms of total ban of synthetic pesticides.You also have the label 'Nature and progress' which is very strong on labor law.These labels meet the bio specifications but try to do better on some points.

This higher requirement has a price. These products are usually more expensive than other organic products.