Ekologické zemědělství

The Council Regulation (EEC) No. 2092/91 stipulates the minimum requirements for organic farming in our country, since May 2004. The implementation of Council Regulation has brought a duplicity of legal regulation on organic farming in our country. That´s why the Czech organic farming act has been amended by the No 553/2004 act. It regulates only issues that are allowed to be modified by national legal regulation – it means administrative, controlling and sanction system.

The European strategy in agriculture is formulated in Common Agriculture Policy ( CAP). The CAP was reformed in 2003 and new aims were incorporated into our national agriculture policy. It accents the need to create multifunctual agriculture to ensure sustainable development. The “Conception of czech agriculture policy after accepting the Czech republic an EU member” also presents the main instruments for financial subsidies to agriculture. The organic farming is promoted within the agroenvironmental programme included to HRDP which followed the state financial support provided till 2004.

The organic farming in the Czech republic has gone through great developement. Although the share of areas under organic farming management in our country is larger to other european countries, the structure of organic land shows the lack of diversity – most of certified organic farms are grassland farms. And as far as bioproducts are concerned they share only 0,1% of the czech food market. To stabilize and to increase the growth of the organic farming, the Ministry of agriculture in cooperation with associations that specialize on organic farming ( PRO-BIO, FOA, EPOS, etc.). published the “Czech action plan for organic farming up to 2010” in 2004. The plan solves recent problems by defining duties for different subject.

The Czech action plan was presented yet before May 2004. Since then many other challenges which have not been counted to it, have revealed – for example farmers have been expressing their dissatisfaction with the administrative requirements of certification body and bureaucratic access of its inspectors. The direct applicability of the european legislative corresponds with some problems in organic farming, too. It is difficult for farmers to keep strict requirements for financial subsidies during the whole 5-year period, which has been prescribed in HRDP.

It is now obvious that the importance of organic farming associations headed by PRO-BIO will be unreplaceable, in such situation. They have helped producers a lot referring the weak points of recent legislative regulation.

The Commission of the European Community has submitted a text of a new Council Regulation on organic farming, recently.

The Czech republic is one of the EU member states and the Community legislation is binding and directly applicable in our country, too. On the other hand it is necessary to be aware of different czech historical, economical, social, etc. conditions. The process of implementation and interpretation of european legislative should reflect these facts. The continuous growth of organic farming in our country could be ensured by this way only.