Swedish Research on Organic Food and Farming 2008–2018 – Updated version november 2018.

Abstract

Swedish research on organic farming is to a large extent funded by directed calls for research on organic food systems. These funders are the research council Formas, SLU EkoForsk at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, the Swedish Board of Agriculture and the Ekhaga foundation. Furthermore, the Swedish Farmers’ Foundation for Agricultural Research (SLF) is funding research on organic farming within their ordinary research programmes, and the projects addressing organic farming are reported here. In 2013 a special program for research on organic farming was launched, which was a joint call of SLF and Formas for the period 2014-2016. This research programme was also jointly financed by the two partners. Swedish research on organic farming is also funded by international funding bodies, e.g. the EU framework programs. Furthermore, several ERA-Net programs, mainly funded by national partners, are relevant for organic agricultural research. In this report only projects within the ERA-Net CORE Organic are included. In this publication the funded research projects since 2008 are listed. From SLU EkoForsk and Formas the 3 to 4-year calls since 2008 are listed. From the Swedish Board of Agriculture, SLF and the Ekhaga foundation, which have yearly research calls, the projects are structured in different subjects and listed chronologically with the most recent projects first. In late 2017 EPOK carried out a research review by request from and funded by the Swedish Board of Agriculture. The review included Swedish research on organic production and organic food from 2008 and was based on the projects in this report. A summary of that review is also included in this updated version