Proposal by Organic Cities

Proposal for consultation by Organic Cities, Bio-Städte (including municipalities and counties) and Città del Bio for the European Commission on the Action Plan for the development of EU organic productionCities play a key role in ensuring the sustainability of agriculture, food and climate neutrality on the European continent.

Cities, towns and municipalities are consumers, spending 240 billion euros a year on procurement in Germany, for example, including spending on food and in urban canteens. In Paris, the public canteens serve 30 million meals per year.

To help them play this key role in European sustainable agriculture and food policies, Cities draw on competences and functions, tools (sustainable food plans, regulatory plans, market regulations, etc.) and projects (nutrition education).

Cities make a decisive impact on agricultural output, as they are centres of wealth, lifestyle and culture, but also areas of marginalization and poverty.

For many years, the European organic cities movement has held the role of stimulator and collaborator for the European institutions (Commission, Parliament, Committee of the Regions) with regard to sustainable organic agricultural and food policies and is the point of contact and partner for a number of organisations such as IFOAM, UN, FAO, ICLEI, Eurocities and Slow Food.

Organic Cities has organised the most politically impactful public meetings and dialogues between cities, European institutions and the organic sector in cities such as Brussels, Paris, Florence, Milan, Parrenzo, Nuremberg, Rome and Vienna.

The European Organic Cities movement is an expression of the key role of cities in ensuring the demand for organic products:

1. It strives towards achieving a sustainable European agricultural and food policy in which the demand for organic products goes beyond the occasional need for regional, fresh and seasonal production.
2. It believes that the success of the Organic Farming Action Plan as a pillar of the Biodiversity Policy, “From Farm to Fork” and the CAP, is largely dependent on addressing the key issues of demand, production and regional distribution of organic products.

For all of these reasons Organic Cities, Bio-Städte and Città del Bio

ask

That cities are given a key role in the new European Action Plan for Organic Agriculture to harmonize supply and demand in the region, as this is the cornerstone of a sustainable and value-enhancing European food and agricultural policy:

3. The work of farmers work, the environment, innovation.
4. A food policy oriented to social justice, as was the case during the pandemic.

It is partly due to the activities of Organic Cities that there is now a vibrant movement of European cities whose goal is to promote an environmentally friendly farming and food system that is committed to regionality and freshness, in the process creating jobs, respecting the environment, pursuing fair food policies and promoting climate neutrality.

18 organic cities: Augsburg, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Darmstadt, Erfurt, Erlangen, Freiburg, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Ingolstadt, Karlsruhe, Landshut, Lauf an der Pegnitz, Leipzig, Munich, Nouremberg, Regensburg, Witzenhausen.

In Italy, Città del Bio, founded in 2003, with over a hundred small municipalities and the originator of the European organic cities movement, has gained invaluable experience over the years on urban food policies focused on rural development and cohesion policies.