Organic farming

The Council Regulation (EC) No. 2092/91 on organic farming has come into force directly in the Czech Republic since the accession to the European Union on 1st May 2004. The topics that are not covered by the Council Regulation but left to the arrangement of the Member States are specified in the Act No. 242/2000 Coll., on organic farming, as last amended. Neither the Act nor the Council Regulation deals with the state support for organic farming or subsidies on organic farming. These topics are laid down in the relevant Government regulation No. 242/2004 Coll., on the implementation of agro-environmental measures, valid for the year 2005.

Organic farming is a type of agricultural farming characterised by saving natural resources and by limits or bans imposed on the application of substances or methods that burden the environment. The breeding of animals is carried out in compliance with ethological requirements, the application of veterinary medicaments is controlled and considerate processing procedures are used.

Conversion period refers to transition from conventional farming to organic. It begins on the day when the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic receives the application of the farmer. It lasts two years for arable land, permanent grassland and pastures and fish breeding and three years for orchards, vineyards and hop yards. The conversion period must be entirely respected up to sowing at arable land or up to using the green fodder for feeding (pasturing or fodder harvest) at permanent grasslands and pastures and up to first harvest at orchards.

If a farmer keeps both conventional and organic farming¹ at the same time, different categories of livestock and different species of crops has to be bred or harvested at each farm primarily for reason of preventing confusion of products from the conventional farm and the organic one. For example: it is not allowed to breed cattle on both the conventional and the organic farm, respectively neither breeding cattle for slaughter at the organic farm nor dairy cows at the conventional farm is tolerated. On the contrary, it is allowed to harvest at both the organic farm and conventional one such species of crops whose production is easily differentiable from each other, e.g. wheat and spelt, red and white cabbage, clearly distinguishable fruit and vegetable varieties etc.

At the organic farm it is only possible to breed such categories of livestock that are determined in paragraph 2 of the Decree No. 16/2006 Coll.: cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits, poultry, fish and bees. Animals not mentioned there can only be bred as a hobby activity but not as a subject of business (e.g. pigeon breeding). If such breeding is a subject of a business it may not be a part of the organic farm (e.g. farm breeding of deer game, breeding of nutria). On the contrary, if the deer game is not bred at the farm but in the game-preserve accredited according to the Act on hunting, such a system can be included in the organic farming.

It is necessary to emphasise that organic farmers have not only to be in line with the Act and the Council Regulation mentioned above, but also have to respect other generally valid regulations, e.g. regulations concerning animal evidence, feeding, animal welfare, etc.

KEZ o.p.s., ABCERT GmbH and Biokont CZ, s.r.o are the control organisations that guarantee professional independent control and certification in the system of organic farming.

Organic farming in figures: 829 organic farmers were registered in 2005. They utilised 254 982 ha of land. Farm Structure Survey that was carried out in autumn 2005 collected data on 599 reporting units² keeping organic farming.

The Czech Statistical Office presents data related to land use, area of orchards, livestock, labour force in agriculture, use of machinery etc. for reporting units keeping solely organic farming. The tables summarise data for individual sections of the questionnaire. Data is not grossed up, i.e. data presents the sample of 518 reporting units.

It results from the above mentioned that the Farm Structure Survey questioned 62,5% of reporting units engaged solely in organic farming and covered 72,7% of land kept in the system of organic farming.
(Elaborated with using the documents on the website of the control organisation KEZ, o.p.s.)


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¹ An eco-farm/organic farm is a closed economic unit including land, farm buildings, equipment for operation and possibly livestock used for organic farming.
² Survey thresholds: at least 1 ha of utilised agricultural land own or rented, or 1000 m² of vineyards, or 1 500 m² of intensive crops (orchards, vegetables, flowers), or 300 m² of covered area, or 1 head of cattle, or 2 pigs, or 4 sheep and goats, or 50 heads of poultry, or 100 rabbits or fur animals.