Majority of organic support in Portugal goes to pastures that do not guarantee organic products | Agriculture
The biological agricultural area in Portugal is growing, having in the last two years gone from 322 thousand hectares, that is, 9% of the Used Agricultural Surface (SAU, in a total of 3900 thousand hectares) to close to 16% (637 thousand hectares), if we are based on the data from the applications of the Single Application 2022 to the Institute for Financing Agriculture and Fisheries (IFAP), not yet translated into the official numbers. This area brings together the regimes in conversion and those already certified.
According to 2020 data from the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, about two thirds of the biological agricultural area is occupied by pastures, which receives financial support for biologicals, but whose final result does not translate into a “bio” product certificate. Unlike permanent crops, pastures are easy to manage and have less risk of species and more production. But the issue raises some controversy.
Isabel Dinis, agronomist and responsible for the Divulgar Bionoma project, questions past support when “we are not able to produce all the organic vegetables and fruits they consume” and we have cleaning recovery needs to supply according to the market. “Making organic pastures is not a great science. The Alentejo is full of pastures that are not going to give rise to organic meat and that receive the same in it”, she says.
It is foreseen in the Strategic Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy for 2023-2027 (PEPAC, which still lacks formal) a change in this regime: the support to be granted not only per hectare but also the number of animals. Taking a step and making them not depend on the problems of the final product would raise other problems, because they are products that can then be sought or properly valued at the prosecutor, Eduardo Diniz, director general of the Office of Planning and General Administration (GPP) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
Even if the meat of the animals uses unsold pastures as organic, the production method “already has advantages from an environmental point of view, in the way natural resources are used”. And, given that the SAU only has 20% of permanent crops, without pastures it would not be possible to approach the European targets of 25% of area under biological regime by 2030.
This prospect, he argues, is more remarkable than forcing them to produce a certified end product. This process may not be cost-effective until selling to them on terms, because “they are not responsible for industrial or retail processing”, with the risk of leading to biological rejection.
There is, however, a difference between the value of support for biological activities provided for in the PEPAC for, for example, maintenance irrigation frescoes (927 euros per hectare at the base, which goes with the planned area increase regime) while pastures 97 euros per hectare to receive another 48 per head of cattle. Calculation that, originated by Eduardo Diniz, is based on occasional costs of income or addition to the different types of production. Despite this, most of the support ends up going to pastures due to the size they are in the SAU.
The head of the GPP recalls that in recent decades the SAU has changed, with pastures to go from 36% in the 1999 census to 52% in 2019. “Organic farming”, he says, “can contribute to an active management of these areas, counteracting abandonment” and, hopefully, in the future, increase the availability of biological products if market conditions become more like this type of offer.