Sweden is making a name for itself in Europe as a producer of clean, risk-free food - safe meat and poultry, untainted dairy products and ecologically grown* vegetables, potatoes and grain. In the wake of such international food scares as mad cow disease and the dioxin poisoning of chicken and egg products, consumers have grown increasingly safety-conscious, and Swedish farmers and food companies are now emphasizing their ecological profile in the market.

Spurred by government incentives, the big farming and consumer organizations are at the forefront of moves towards a new kind of Swedish model, based on humane animal husbandry and `the world's cleanest agriculture'.

Sweden has fought in the EU to keep its stringent rules on things like salmonella checks and antibiotics in feed and has been granted exemption in a number of instances. In fact, the EU appears to be increasingly interested in the `Swedish model' as a possible way forward for European food production as a whole.

In Sweden, public consciousness about the connection between animal and human health in the food chain was rudely awakened as early as 1953. A salmonella epidemic thought to have originated in a slaughterhouse killed almost 100 people. Shocked, the authorities clamped down and in 1961 passed detailed new laws designed to prevent salmonella from spreading to humans. Mainly as a result of this early start, Sweden is today able to produce chicken, eggs, pork and beef that are virtually salmonella-free.

It was not until the 1980s, however, that environment issues in general - ecological food production among them - became a major focus of attention in Swedish society. People began to discuss not only the health aspects of food products but also the ways in which they were produced. Interest grew in the ecological and ethical aspects of Swedish agriculture - what condition was farmland in and how were farm animals being treated?

At the beginning of the decade, ecological farmers were few and far between. There was virtually no coordination of supplies, and these were largely restricted to flour, potatoes and vegetables. Most produce was sold directly from farmers to consumers on a local basis, often through channels set up by the consumers themselves or through health food stores. The major food chains showed little interest in such products. The few regular grocery shops that stocked ecologically grown produce tended to put it in a corner without any advertising, almost as a curiosity.

Growth of the ecological market

Consumer interest steadily grew, however, and market conditions started to change. Growers began to organize and major retailers and food manufacturers, unused to dealing with numerous small suppliers, pressed for a whole new distribution system for ecological products. The first of three nationwide ecological producer cooperatives was established, Samodlarna, specializing in fruit, vegetables and potatoes. It was followed (in the early 1990s) by Eco Trade, specializing in grain and oilseeds, and Ekokött, which coordinated and developed marketing channels for ecological meat.

But how were consumers to know that the produce was in fact ecological? And what exactly did `ecological' mean? There was considerable confusion on both counts until the establishment in 1985 of KRAV, an inspection body for certification accredited to both the Swedish Board of Agriculture and the National Food Administration. Together with that of the much smaller Demeter, a certifying body for biodynamic farmers, the green KRAV label soon became synonymous with clean, safe, ecologically grown food in Sweden. Basically, the purpose of KRAV and Demeter inspection and certification is to ensure the credibility of ecological produce and guarantee ecological products throughout the food chain from farmer to consumer.

KRAV, which today claims to be the biggest certifying organization of its kind in the world, defines ecological products generally speaking as those that have been produced without the use of aids like chemical fertilizer or pesticides, or in the case of poultry, meat and eggs, etc, without the use of antibiotics, hormones and the like by livestock farmers. Feed must be ecologically grown and farm animals must be properly treated.

Nowadays, the organization and its label are so widely accepted that most Swedes no longer refer to `organic food' or `ecological food' but simply to `KRAV food'.

Animal welfare in focus

As ecological awareness grew in the 1980s, animal welfare in food production also attracted increasing attention. The debate focused on large-scale husbandry methods that led to sick and stressed animals, particularly pigs and battery hens, and brutal handling in connection with transports and slaughter. The fact that many cows were being kept indoors all year round came as a surprise to the general public and helped fuel the animal rights debate, which was led by Astrid Lindgren, the well-known and highly popular author of children's books.

The use of growth drugs in livestock farming was also strongly criticized. The public found it hard to accept that healthy animals should be plied with antibiotics. Farmers' organizations backed down and in 1985 a new law put a stop to the general practice of adding antibiotics to feed for pigs, poultry and calves. The use of drugs to improve feed efficiency for cattle has never been allowed in Sweden.

Limiting farmers' access to drugs like antibiotics also has repercussions for animal welfare. When producers are unable to use them to cover up poor management and an inadequate environment they have to improve both if they want their animals to remain healthy. Thus they have to identify and resolve the causes of problems instead of simply treating the symptoms with medication.

Following revelations that grass-eaters like cattle and sheep were being given feed made from the carcasses of sick animals, including destroyed pets, and from condemned offal from slaughterhouses, a 1986 law forbade the use of such feed for all animals in the human food chain - a unique move that stood Swedish milk and beef producers in good stead when the causes of mad cow disease were established in the 1990s.

Spread of ecological farming

With a new Animal Protection Act in place, emphasizing healthy livestock in natural surroundings, along with other legislation of importance from an environmental viewpoint, the 1990s have largely been a time of ecological consolidation for Sweden's food producers and consumers.

The decade began with a sudden leap in the amount of ecological farmland, due both to a new government subsidy for conversion to ecological agriculture and burgeoning interest among food retailers. The proportion of farmland turned over to ecological use rose from 0.5% in 1989 to 3.5% in 1995. In that year, a new comprehensive package of subsidies for ecological conversion was introduced as part of the EU's environment programme, and the Government announced an official 10% goal for ecological farmland by the turn of the century. This helped boost the figure to 8.6% by 1998 and although the goal does not look like being achieved on schedule, it has been generally welcomed as a way of focusing the agricultural mind.

Interestingly, the powerful Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF), traditionally the chief spokesman for conventional farmers, is one of the organizations to have thrown its weight behind the swing to ecological farming.

At the end of 1998, KRAV had certified 2,860 farmers and 127,000 hectares - as well as 580 retail shops, 570 processors and importers, 190 restaurants and industrial kitchens, 17 textile processing companies and 2,700 products, 900 of them imported.

However, the increase in ecological farmland has not resulted in a corresponding increase in ecological food production. This is because much of the ecological acreage comprises pasture and feed-crops not immediately connected with the ecological food market. In 1997, for instance, about 7% of Sweden's agricultural land qualified for the ecological farming grant but less than half of the land (3.4%) was actually certified by KRAV or Demeter as being suitable for ecological food production.

Nevertheless, a range of ecological food products is now to be found in virtually every Swedish grocery store, and most retail chain stores offer fresh produce carrying the KRAV label. In some cases, stores have made ecologically-certified food their competitive edge, while others have restricted their involvement to grudging compliance with consumer demands or general company policy. Increasingly, however, an ecological profile is being viewed in the Swedish food retail trade as being not only potentially profitable but possibly essential to the survival of the business in the long term.

Consumer pressure increases

In June 1999, the consumer-owned Green Konsum chain - a division of the giant retail cooperative movement, KF - announced that it had doubled sales of ecological food over the past two years and that by the end of the year one item in ten on its shelves would be certifiably ecological. At the same time, it claimed that the food industry was holding up ecological development. Demand was 2-3 times as great as supply, and the cooperative was now having to build up its own production chains to ensure that sought-after foodstuffs were constantly available, particularly meat.

Green Konsum, with its 435 shops, is the biggest ecological food retailer in Europe. It has become increasingly critical both of the domestic food industry, which it says is dominated by too few players in near-monopoly positions, and of the Government, which it says is too passive in its support. It has warned that farmers may not be prepared to convert to ecological production if industry is not geared to receive what they produce, and that consumers may tire of shortages on the shelves and withhold their custom.

For several years now, both KF and the merchant-owned ICA chain have had their own ecological brands on the shelves: KF's Änglamark brand and in the case of ICA the Sunda brand for food and Skona for technical-chemical products. Green Konsum make a point of placing ecological fruit and vegetables on the same counter as conventional products and marking them clearly overhead.

Today, ecological food production in Sweden has developed beyond primary products like fruit and vegetables and processed products like milk, flour and bread to even more refined products such as cheese, baby food, ice cream, meatballs and jam. Ecological food usually costs considerably more than equivalent non-ecological products, but many people seem prepared to pay. And as competition increases, prices are expected to fall.

Safe Swedish Food on the Net

Ecological exports are steadily increasing, and the Swedish food industry is showing particular interest in places like Britain, Germany and the Benelux countries where food safety is a major issue.

In early 1999, a new model for farm foods was presented in Britain, the Swedish Farm Assured programme, which allows British consumers with access to the Internet to follow the item from the farm through the production and transportation stages all the way to the store shelf. Via a web address on the label, consumers click their way to the (quality-certified) farm in Sweden from where the product originated.

The programme currently involves some 40 milk and pork producers whose entire output is intended for the British market. Similar programmes are being developed for other European markets, especially Germany, where consumers are both environment-minded and well-informed.

Such export campaigns are reflected at home by efforts to develop and introduce overall quality assurance and environmental performance plans for agriculture. The key points are traceability, high quality and explicit environmental reporting, and the plans incorporate both ISO 9002 and ISO 14001 certification, international standards that are accepted in the export market and which the food processing industries themselves use.

Such plans have already been introduced by exporters of such items as cereals and grains (Swedish Seal), pork and beef from slaughterhouses (Best In Sweden, BIS) and vegetables and potatoes (Integrated Production, IP). An environmental bonus or premium system has also been implemented for milk production among dairy companies.

Down on the farm

The process of certifying quality begins at home with a do-it-yourself inventory or annual checklist, known as the Eco Audit. Farmers fill in a computerized form that besides showing where they stand in environmental and animal welfare terms also allows them to keep in touch with the ever-changing laws and regulations that apply to agriculture.

The authorities do not of course accept this kind of self-inspection as being incontestably accurate, and also carry out their own checks at the farm. But Eco Audits are considered an important aid to marketing as well as a money-saving incentive to producers, in that a growing number of local authorities are reducing their regulatory visits and charges as a result.

Completion of an Eco Audit is also increasingly viewed by the food processing industry, especially the dairies, as a precondition for cooperating with the farmer in question, and the audits are an obligatory part of quality programmes run by KRAV, Swedish Seal and the slaughterhouses.

KRAV certification

KRAV, the major certifying body for ecological products, is run as a non-profit organization. Any company, association or other body operating on a nationwide basis may become a member. The present 24 member organizations include the big farming and retail cooperatives, distributors, food processors and animal protection groups as well as environmental groups that were instrumental in launching the ecological movement in the first place.

Internationally, KRAV is an active member of IFOAM, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, an umbrella organization uniting farmers, scientists, educationalists and certifiers from most parts of the world. KRAV takes an active part in developing the IFOAM standards and also works to influence EU legislation on ecological production. A subsidiary, KRAV Kontroll AB, monitors KRAV-certified production abroad, including textile processing and fish-farming. A former KRAV subsidiary, the Grolink consultancy firm, specializes in establishing certification programmes abroad, particularly in the developing countries.

At home, KRAV inspectors visit member companies and organizations at least once a year to ensure that they are complying with the regulations. In the case of imports, KRAV's policy is to approve only products that have been certified by other bodies accredited to IFOAM.

The major difference between KRAV and similar organizations outside the Nordic area is that it also embraces ecological livestock farming, taking into consideration such ethical aspects as the animals' need to live freely and naturally as far as possible. Today, all cows in Sweden must be out in pasture in summer and all pigs are allowed to roam loose. Calves and pigs must have access to straw and reasonable space, and Sweden has become the first EU country to outlaw battery cages - hens must now have access to a nest, a perch and a dustbath.

Antibiotics and hormes

The National Food Administration is the central regulatory authority for food matters, and one of its tasks is to protect consumer interests by working for safe food. Its 1998 report showed that Swedish foodstuffs are almost completely free from unwanted substances like antibiotics and hormones. Of 16,000 samples taken from red meat, chicken, milk, fish, deer and game, eight samples of beef and pork and only one of milk contained antibiotic levels above the limit. None contained hormone residues. In 1999, analysis is being extended to honey and eggs as well.

Swedish opposition to drugs like antibiotics in animal food production has also helped keep resistant bacteria at bay in this country, while in many other countries these bacteria are becoming increasingly evident, resulting in the spread of severe pneumonia, salmonella and tuberculosis.

In fact, Sweden has helped bring the issue onto the EU agenda and the idea of a ban on antibiotics as growth promoters is now widely supported. The World Health Organization, WHO, is showing concern and at the end of 1998 the European Commission surprised many people by banning six out of ten antibacterial feed additives. In June 1999, all EU countries pledged to step up controls on the non-medical use of antibiotics in animal feed.

On the hormone front, consumers and almost all producers in Sweden have vociferously opposed the introduction of monster cattle like the Belgian Blue. The defect gene introduced by the breeder generates severe problems at calving, a weak skeleton and other disorders, and Swedish opposition has centred on the animal welfare problems involved rather than any potential health hazard to the end-consumer.

Genetically modified food

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) are allowed in Sweden but in accordance with EU rules any foodstuffs containing them must state this on the label. The National Food Administration is working on a control system to check compliance but proper laboratory analysis is not yet available, although reliable methods are being developed around Europe.

KRAV, however, does not accept GMOs in ecological food production, and seeks to check every stage of production and distribution to ensure that they do not enter the food chain. Even food additives like soya lecithin, citric acid, enzymes and vitamins are screened. If upon inquiry the supplier or producer cannot guarantee that the product is GMO-free, it is not approved.

KRAV's main concern now is that test growing of GM crops like oilseed rape may lead to modified genes spreading via weeds to surrounding fields.

Eco-meals on wheels

Today, though, as KRAV happily notes on its website (http://www.krav.se/), Sweden is a country where all train restaurants serve ecologically-certified meals, all Members of Parliament can have a KRAV-certified meal at the parliamentary restaurant in Stockholm and McDonald's serves ecological milk.

In terms of the percentage of total agricultural land used for ecological farming, Sweden is now second only to Austria, a country whose alpine terrain makes large-scale conventional farming more or less impossible. And in several other European countries, including Britain and France, growth in actual ecological production has either slowed or stagnated.

Should the spread of ecological land in Sweden be matched by a willingness among farmers to produce ecological primary products - a prerequisite for the more highly processed food products that are increasingly in demand - and should a more sophisticated chain of supply be developed to satisfy consumer requirements, analysts believe the `greening' of Swedish agriculture will continue apace.

As the third millennium approaches, the arrival on the international scene of a new Swedish model as famous as the first one, based on a government-backed push for the `world's cleanest agriculture', seems a fairly realistic proposition.

The term `ecological' is used in this article - and indeed in Sweden - in preference to the terms `organic' or `natural' more commonly used in English-speaking countries to describe such produce. In Sweden, ecological produce is a catch-all label for certified naturally grown, organically-biologically grown or biodynamically grown produce.

Stephen Croall is a freelance journalist and translator living in Sweden. He has specialized in environmental issues and is the author of Ecology for Beginners, which has been translated into 14 languages. Educated at a vegetarian boarding school in England, he has cautiously begun eating game in later life.