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EASTERN EUROPE GOES ORGANIC
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Can farmers, consumers and wildlife benefit if Eastern Europe's traditional farms go organic?
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| Carrot farmers in Poland |
Eastern Europe's farmland wildlife thrives in a way that Britain's did 60 years ago. Traditional farming techniques and low chemical use create ideal homes for all sorts of flowers, insects, birds, and bigger animals like elk and wolf too. But many farmers are moving off the land and selling to multinational companies, which convert the farms to intensive monocultures based on Western chemical agriculture techniques. It is a disaster for wildlife.
When Lionel Kelleway visits the beautiful Biebrza marshes in North East Poland he finds conservationists struggling to maintain the traditional farming that has produced such rich wildlife habitat there. But money is short and EU Agri-environment funds can't afford to subsidize environment-friendly farming across the whole region as more and more countries join the EU.
But there could be a solution. If Eastern Europe's traditional farmers take the relatively small step of going completely organic, the premium price that they get both at home and abroad could keep them on the land, save the wildlife, and produce high-quality food for local people.
Lionel Kelleway examines the reality of this vision with the man who is already helping Polish farmers to sell organic fruit around the world, with a Polish cheese-producer who sees organic food as the only long-term possibility, and with the director of the Avalon Foundation which is promoting organic farming right across Eastern Europe.
 Listen again to the programme
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