Organic.dk News, 1999

December 3rd 1999

Paul Holmbeck

New leader of The Organic House
The Organic House has chosen Paul Holmbeck as its new managing director. For the last five years Paul Holmbeck has been political analyst in the house which is hosting The Danish Association of Organic Agriculture and The Organic Service Center. Paul Holmbeck is 38 years old and an American citizen, but he has been living in Denmark for the last eight years. He is member of The Organic Food Council which is advising the Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries.

November 18th 1999

Danish regulation translated into English - and German
The Danish order no 757 from The Plantdirectorate is now translated into English and German. They can be downloaded from the "facts" page. The order 757 is regulating the farm production. As mentioned two weeks earlier the order 263 from The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration is already translated, but only into English.

November 15th 1999

karsten-deibjerg.jpg (4628 bytes)
Karsten Deibjerg
organic and conventional
meat director

Organic director goes to Europe's biggest slaugtherhouse company
Karsten Deibjerg Kristensen, managing director of Friland Food, the biggest organic meat company in Denmark, has got a new job on top of his old one. From the beginning of the new year, he will be sales director for Danish Crown. In his new job, he will be responsible for the domestic market of fresh meat. Danish Crown is the biggest slaugtherhouse company in Europe. It has a yearly production of 16 million pigs (which is quite a lot in a country of 5 million people!). The organic meat production is increasing, but last year it only reached around 23.000 slaugtherings. Since last summer, Danish Crown has owned a big share of the stocks in Friland Food.

Karsten Deibjerg does not leave his old position, which means that now he will have a leading role in both the conventional and the organic meat sector. He started in the organic meat company nine years ago and has been responsible for building up Friland Food. Today Karsten Deibjerg is 33 years old.

November 4th 1999

Only one organic brewery left
There is now only one brewery in Denmark, producing organic beer. A few years ago there was an increasing interest in organic beer, and in a short period there were six different trademarks of organic beer in Denmark from four different breweries, including the leading Danish brewery Carlsberg. But the consumers did not buy it, and one by one they left the market. Latest the supermarket chain FDB has decided to stop their private label organic beer, Pokal. Today only one small brewery, Thisted Bryghus, still produces organic beer. On the other hand this brewery has a constant increase in the sales of organic beer, and continues to introduce new kinds of organic beers. During the last year the brewery has introduced three new beers, including special organic brews for Christmas and Easter.

November 2nd 1999

The organic orders are now translated into English
The Danish regulations on organic production are now being translated into English. It is already now possible to download a PDF-version of the English version of Order 263, which regulates processing, trade and import, given out by The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. It is expected that also The Plantdirectorate will soon release an updated English version of the order regulating the farm production. The principles of the Danish organic regulations are based on the EU regulations, but the two orders regulate how the Danish authorities are to administrate the EU regulation in Denmark.

The discussion paper on IFOAM accreditation - mentioned below - is now also available for download. It is in word-format, but is still in Danish only.

October 29th 1999

The government considers IOAS accreditation
The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration has released a paper discussing the problems and possibilities of letting the Danish governmental certification bodies be accredited by IOAS (IFOAM). Among several other themes the paper points out that a difficult problem is related to the fact, that the govermental institutions are bound to use the standards of the EU regulations. Another problem mentioned is, that the IOAS is not recognized by the EU, and it could weaken the Danish position in the community, if governmental institutions were closely connected to private organizations, which were not recognized by the EU. The paper mentions the alternative, that private bodies could be accredited by IOAS and at the same time have a close cooperation with the governmental institutions. The paper also points out, that there is still no documentation, that it would be an improvement for the Danish export, if Denmark had an IFOAM accredited certification body.

The released discussion-paper is written in Danish only.

October 28th 1999

Gustav Wied speaks
at the IFOAM Conference

Wrong announcement about IFOAM-speaker
As mentioned below, Flemming Duus Mathiesen was registred as speaker at last week's IFOAM Trade Conference in Florence, Italy. Unfortunately he had to cancel his participation. Instead Gustav Wied represented The Directorate for Development of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries. Gustav Wied made a speak on "Communicating organic Agriculture leading to succes on national level", among other subjects he pointed out the importance of the strategy of the Actionsplans.

October 17th 1999

Many Danes go to the IFOAM conference
About 35 Danes are expected to participate in next week's IFOAM Trade Conference in Florence, Italy. Among the Danish speakers in sessions and workshops are Flemming Duus Mathiesen, Directorate for Development of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries (Thursday 9.00), Rudy Kortbech-Olesen, ITC (Monday 15.20), Lene Raunkjær, Organic Development (Thursday, 11.00, 3. roundtable), Peder Venge, Ecotrain Europe (Thursday 11.00, 1. workshop) and Jens Wang Jensen, FDB (Thursday 11.00, 2. symposium).

News via e-mail
Do you want e-mail-news about the Danish organic sector in the future? Please send your name, company and adress to news@ecoweb.dk This service is not yet established. But if you join now, you will automatically be on the list, when it starts.

October 16th 1999

Danish organic companies plan to have common stand at Natural Products
A dozen Danish organic companies expect to present themselves in a joint stand at the Natural Products fair in London next year. If they succeed, this will be the greatest common participation of Danish organic companies on a fair until now. Later - when the plans have been confirmed - this website will bring a list of the companies participating.

October 15th 1999

MD Foods presented organic cheese at ANUGA
At the big ANUGA fair in Köln this week MD Foods presented its organic products in the Harmonie-series. Only very few other Danish organic companies were presenting products at the fair. Although many went there as visitors. One of the visitors was the President of The Agricultural Council of Denmark, Peter Gæmelke, who - according to the press release of MD Foods - showed special interest in the organic products.

MD Foods is the worlds largest producer of organic milk products. Since summer 1999 the company has had a surplus of organic milk, which is now heavily used for conventionel products. MD Foods is now working for an increase in the export of organic milk products, especially at the British and the German market. On October 5th the company announced, that they will form a new company with the Swedish Arla, which has also shown great interest in organic milk production.

October 14th 1999

Analysis of a total changeover of Danish agriculture to organic production
Earlier this year Ministry of Environment and Energy presented the final results from the Bichel Committee. It gives a full scale analysis of the implications of reducing or phasing out the use of pesticides in the country. The report is available only in Danish. But the ministry has published a summary in English.

The Danish version of the work of the Bichel Committee is published - as PDF-files - in a main report and reports from the sub-committees of 1) agricultural production, 2) production, economy and employment, 3) environment and health, 4) legislation and the interdisciplinary group of organic farming. A special supplementary report covers Legal questions regarding total changeover of Danish agriculture to organic farming production.

Including all sub-reports the work of the Bichel Committee covers around one thousand pages.

October 5th 1999

_{The minister
officially}
_opens _{the Organic House}

Kl. 10.50:
Minister of food opened the Organic House
At October 4th the Danish Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Henrik Dam Kristensen, opened the so called Organic House, which is common office for some main organic NGO's: The Organic Service Center and The Danish Association of Organic Agriculture and several other organic organizations.

At the opening ceremony the minister said, that he wanted to encourage the food industry to develop more organic products both for export and for the domestic market. He stressed that higher processing of the food and introduction of fastfood is important.

- It is a big challenge to satisfy the demands of the busy families, he said.

July 30th 1999

Organic organizations have moved
The Organic Service Center and The Danish Association of Organic Agriculture have this summer moved their offices to a new house in Århus. You can find their new adress at the menu: Who and Where.

April 1999

Actionplan II
Read the english summary of Actionplan II - Developments in Organic Farming (or download in PDF-format, 232 KB)
(Published by the Danish Directorate for Development (Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries), jan. 1999)

You can also download the full Danish version in PDF-format (1.5 MB)