January 9, 2023

Eat This Podcast: Biodiversity at Liberty

How farmers in Belgium and the south of France are taking advantage of new a EU regulation to become more sustainable

Hello,

Since 1966, the European Union has had the most restrictive laws in the world on agricultural biodiversity. To be marketed, a variety has to be distinct, uniform and stable, which in principle means the individual plants have to be effectively identical. This has never suited organic farmers or any other smaller scale growers, including home gardeners. Finally, after a few false starts, a new regulation permitted the marketing of “organic heterogeneous material” from January 2022.

One of the organisations that campaigned for the new regulation is Let’s Liberate Diversity. I went along to their 10^th anniversary forum to hear how farmers and food producers were responding to the new regulation.

Take a listen.

All the best

Jeremy