Still hardly any organic or regional fruit in Luxembourg’s schools – Ministry of Agriculture continues to fail!
The Ministry of Agriculture has just started the tendering process for the supply of school fruit for the coming 2024/25 school year. After all, this involves over 400 tonnes.
As a reminder, the Mouvement Ecologique has been arguing for years that the Ministry of Agriculture should prioritize organic and regional fruit. This should actually be a matter of course nowadays in view of the repeatedly stated commitment to strengthen and diversify Luxembourg’s agriculture.
But far from it: as in the tenders of recent years, the current tender from August 2024 is once again predominantly focused on price and criteria such as fruit having to be visually appealing and apples – to take just this example – not being too wrinkly.
Since the last school fruit tender, the proportion of organic food required has been increased from 5% to 10% and carrots must also be organic. The Mouvement Ecologique expressly welcomes this development.
Unfortunately, however, these improvements are not nearly enough to fulfil today’s requirements in terms of sustainability and, in fact, the numerous political promises. Far more fundamental course corrections are required!
Above all, it is necessary for the ministry to disclose a strategy for gradually increasing the specified percentage of organic and regional fruit in the tenders over the coming years. Only if farmers know that demand will systematically increase in the foreseeable future will they make the decision to grow more of this type of fruit and (partially) switch their production.
Restopolis, the administration of the Ministry of Education, which is responsible for the organisation of school canteens, shows how it works: Restopolis has published such a strategy, with concrete percentages of how much more organic and regional products they will demand in phases over the coming years, thus sending a clear signal to Luxembourg producers, who can adapt their production thanks to this planning security.
An important element of Restopolis’ strategy is that – in addition to the fundamental goal of increasing the percentage of organic and regional goods in the coming years – they no longer focus primarily on price in public tenders. Organic farming and regionality take precedence over pure price calculation. This has the great advantage that the market for organic and regional products will be stimulated far more dynamically rather than just relying on rigid, desirable percentages. In fact, a producer of organic regional fruit who does not go completely overboard with prices is almost guaranteed sales for the majority of goods in the context of the Restopolis strategy. This brings movement to the market and can bring about a transition to more sustainable agriculture. For society, this ultimately pays off through more nature and environmental protection, the promotion of regional jobs, and better health protection.
In addition, the ministry must also reconsider the selection of varieties in the tender. The ministry is currently stipulating the supply of apple varieties that are particularly susceptible to scab and mildew and therefore need to be treated with fungicides. Why is it not left to the producers to offer more resistant regional fruit varieties, so that the use of pesticides can already be reduced through the choice of variety, thus minimising the harmful impact on nature and the environment?
Furthermore, the use of synthetically produced pesticides also results in the presence of harmful residues in fruit – especially in (imported) non-bio fruit. It is a fact, that an analysis carried out by the LIH (Luxembourg Institute of Health) on behalf of the Ministry of Health in 2022 showed that Luxembourg schoolchildren are contaminated with pesticides. According to further studies, certified organic fruit is practically free of pesticide residues and regional fruit is at least less contaminated than comparable imported products.
Why are children’s health and the protection of nature and the environment not more in the focus of the Ministry of Agriculture? Why is the Ministry of Agriculture not doing more to promote a transition to sustainable agriculture in this country by specifically promoting organic and regional fruit production?
Mouvement Ecologique asbl
04.09.2024
1 Up to 88 different harmful substances found in the hair of Luxembourg children https://www.lih.lu/de/bis-zu-88-verschiedene-schadstoffe-in-den-haaren-luxemburgischer-kinder-gefunden/
2 Annual report – Campagne de contrôle relative aux teneurs en résidus de pesticides dans les produits d’origine végétale, aliments destinés aux nourrissons et enfants en bas âge et produits d’origine animale 2021 https://securite-alimentaire.public.lu/dam-assets/fr/publications/link-liste/plan-control-rapports/rapport-annuel-pesticides-2021.pdf