Heated organic tomatoes production-a contradiction in terms?

The idea of 12 month a year production of organic tomatoes, grown in heated poly tunnels seems completely counter intuitive to me, but not it seems to our friends over at the FNSEA, basically the French National Framers Union, that control all but one of the Departmental Chambers of Agriculture.

It seems that growing organically certified tomatoes is heated poly tunnels is allowed under European Organic regulations.

In attempt to close this loop hole the body that governs organic rules here in France, the National Committee for Organic Agriculture, CNAB, advised the Ministry of Agriculture on the 7th of December to ban this practice, apart from in the face of sever frost, when heating could be allowed to save a crop. Not unreasonable you may think, one of the objectives of organic agriculture is to lower the carbon food print of farming, not a well know characteristic of heated poly tunnels.

The large vegetable co-ops did not agree and wrote to the Ministry arguing that this would lead to a big drop off in French production, to the advantage of other country’s producers. To follow this up seven bodies that represent the large producers, the Chambers of Agriculture and the FNSEA weighted in writing to the CNAB, arguing that forbidding the use of heated poly tunnels was a health risk, to whom exactly is not clear. More likely it is a risk to the health of certain companies bank accounts.

So on the 13th December, grace of the votes Ministry of Agriculture and Economy civil servants who sit on the CNAb committee the decision was delayed for another round of consultation and will be now taken in April. Curiously the Ministry’s website still urges French consumers to eat seasonally, the question is what country’s seasons, Kenya’s?

Note to readers Channard Enchaine is not exactly the most reliable of sources, but this does sound a pretty accurate description to me