The contribution of research to the development of organic farming in Europe

On national as well as on EU level, research funds should be directed substantially towards organic farming in order to improve the economic and ecological performance of organic farming. The impact of research funds is very high in this field of food production, because, as yet, the potential of organic farming has been scarcely tapped by research. Integrating organic farming research into conventional research structures means disintegrating organic farming itself. Therefore, special attention should be given to how research activities are organised. National or regional centres of competence (hubs) are needed in order to provide and maintain an appropriate quality of research. These hubs can be organised as real or virtual centres. Evaluation procedures for most national and EU research funds do not consider adequately the unique approach and methodology of organic farming research

The Evolution of Organic Practice

Table of Contents: - The rejection of conventional agricultural techniques - Problems of Early Organic Farms - A Half Century of Progress - Issues in organic researc

Advancing organic and low-input food. QLIF Integrated Research Project

The Integrated Project “Improving quality and safety and reduction of costs in the European organic and low input supply chains” (QLIF) was funded by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. QLIF started in 2004 with 31 scientific and industry partners and supplemented the consortium with another five partners via open calls. The total budget was 18 million € of which the European Commission contributed 12.4 million €. The duration of the project was five years. The scope of QLIF was on quality and safety of organic and low-input foods in the context of cost efficiency and sound environments. Sixty-one work packages provided conclusive answers based on comprehensive analyses from scientific experiments, socio-economic data and complex modelling. The work was organized in 7 subprojects with interdependent aims. Here an outline is given on what the Integrated Project QLIF has achieved and what challenges remain. Individual subproject folders provide a further insight to the outcomes and a substantial amount of QLIF publications are available in the open access database Organic Eprints

FiBL and Organic Research in Switzerland

Table of Contents: - How the pioneers provoked the criticism from Science - The long way towards institutionlized organic research - Research priorities of FiBL over the last three decades - FiBL's broad commitmen

Beware - Major Challenges Ahead

The paper addresses several current questions related to current orgnaic framing research. Inspite of many challgenges, organic agriculture and organic food chains offer an excellent framework for developing novel solutions for the challenges that global society faces - challenges that conventional agriculture has not been able to solve so far

Stimulating the potential for innovation in organic farming by research

Organic farming research has been developed over 4 stages: i) Pioneer farmers and scientists, ii) pioneer private research institutes, iii) organic farming chairs at universities and finally iv) organic farming projects and institutes at state research institutions. Today, organic agriculture has become finally accepted within agriculture and food research. The main key players in organic research in Europe are mentioned in the text. Mainly in Europe, public funded research has shifted towards organic farming, whereas the research resources for conventional farming have been cut down considerably. The paper gives an overview of the current status and the future prospects of organic farming research in Europe

Organic Agricultural Research in Europe -– Present State and Future Prospects

Organic agriculture has become a widely accepted sector of agricultural and food research. In Europe publicly funded research has shifted towards organic farming, while research funding for conventional farming has been cut considerably. This paper takes a closer look at how organic farming research is organised in Europe and at what challenges researchers will face in the future

Improving the quality and safety of organic and low input foods and maximizing the benefits to consumers and producers

‘Improving quality and safety and reduction of cost in the European organic and 'low input' supply chains' (QLIF) is an Integrated Project under the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission which started in March 2004 and will end in February 2009. After three years of research by 31 QLIF partners, the scientific data on on the benefits of the system approach used in organic and ‘low input’ agriculture has expanded considerably. At the same time the project has developed an array of technological innovations that are applicable to a wide range of food production systems and novel approaches for whole food chain management. During the 3rd QLIF Congress held at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, in March 2007, these results were discussed in nine synthesis papers and in 37 in-depth papers

Status quo of Organic Farming Research in Switzerland

The paper gives on overwiew of the current situation of organic farming research in Switzerland, including addresses of the relevant institutions

Nichts für Biominimalisten

Zwischen Richtlinien und Prinzipien des ökologischen Landbaus klafft oft eine Lücke. Um diese zu schließen, hat das Aktionsnetzwerk für nachhaltigen, ökologischen Landbau die „beste ökologische Praxis“ entwickelt. Urs Niggli weiß, worauf es ankommt