Coordination of European Transnational Research in Organic Farming Systems

Organic agriculture and food markets have grown considerably, and organic agriculture addresses important challenges of European agriculture, such as the sustainable production of high-quality food, reducing dependency on high energy inputs, improving environmental and nature conservation, climate change adaptation, animal welfare and rural livelihoods. Organic farming and food systems still have a huge potential for innovation and improved solutions. Research activities will be important for this

HOW TO IMPROVE RESEARCH COMMUNICATION IN TRANSNATIONAL PROJECTS

Good research dissemination has to define the exploitable results, to produce suitable dissemination tools and select the best dissemination channels in order to bring the key messages to the target groups. Publications in peer-reviewed journals and other forms of written documents such as articles in popular journals or technical leaflets are traditionally the most selected tools and channels for research dissemination (Poulsen 2010). Because consolidated research results are available usually at the end of a research project only, continuous dissemination activities during the lifetime of a project is not always ensured. We argue that new media including blogs, YouTube videos, Facebook, and Twitter, can help to create an arena for a potential target audience, creating awareness of the research project and assuring a continuous information flow. The aim of this paper is to provide recommendations to researchers on how to improve the dissemination of their research. Furthermore we propose additional criteria to funding bodies to be considered in call announcements, and when selecting and evaluating research proposals

Occurrence of mycotoxin patulin and polyphenol profile of Nordic apple juices in relation to apple cultivation system and pre-processing storage temperature

The aims of this study were to find out if organic apple juice (AJ) contained higher contents of polyphenols or patulin compared to conventional AJ, and if higher storage temperature before processing increases patulin content in juice. AJ was pressed from Estonian, Danish and Norwegian apples. Additionally, three cultivars from Estonian organic and conventional orchards were stored at 3±2 °C and 9±2 °C before processing. Patulin, polyphenol content and antioxidant capacity were determined in pasteurized juices. In 2015, 33% of conventional (n=6) and 46% of organic (n=11) juices contained patulin; two of the organic juices above the legal limit (191 and 64µg l-1). In 2016, none of the AJs contained patulin. Patulin occurrence was more affected by weather conditions two weeks before harvest than by cultivation system and apple storage temperature. Polyphenol content was higher in organic than in conventional juices and was reduced at higher apple storage temperature