EU Research Programme “Food 2030” – Opportunities for Organic Actors?

The focus of the fifth Science Day at BioFach in Nuremberg was on the opportunities and possibilities that intensification of research in the organic sector would bring. Taking part were around 50 members of the community engaged in research in organic agriculture and organic food. The major theme at the event was long-term strategies. It was organised by the Forschungsinstitut für biologischen Landbau (FiBL), TIPI (IFOAM – Organics International), the European technology platform TP Organics and IFOAM EU. Whereas the morning was devoted to developing the research perspectives in the EU, in the afternoon the perspective was global.

In a decade 7.5 % of EU funding for research into agriculture – 150 million euros – was spent on the organic and sustainable sector. Hans-Jörg Lutzeyer, from the EU Commission in the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, explained at the outset the prospects for research into organic agriculture within the recently announced EU programme “Food 2030”. This is the successor to “Horizon 2020” that is currently supporting numerous projects in the organic sector. In October the perspectives for agricultural research in its entirety for the years 2020 to 2030 will be presented to the EU Parliament as “Food 2030”.

Research on location is imperative

At the launch of the event Eduardo Cuoco, managing director of the IFOAM EU Group, welcomed everyone present and gave a brief review of the ten years of research cooperation at European level. He said the highlight of their work was the recognition of TP Organics on 12 June 2013 as an official technology platform – a network of participating associations. He referred also to the recently revamped internet presence under www.TPorganics.eu, the "Organic Innovation Days" and the appeal to submit organic research projects at the beginning of December last year in Brussels. A large number of project results were published on the internet under CORE Organic. The current call for research applications in the organic sector came to an end on 1 March this year. The next call is likely to be announced in the autumn.

The focus in the second half of the event was on the need for research in global organic agriculture. Since you can't transfer 'European knowledge' in all cases 1:1 to other climate zones, it is frequently necessary to carry out research on location. In a highly informative presentation, Urs Niggli, the head of FiBL in Switzerland, and Christian Andres, coordinator of TIPI worldwide, addressed the current weak points in the development of organic agriculture: insufficient local counselling, no training and further training of farmers, too little knowledge about alternatives in combatting pests and plant diseases are just a few of many problems.

David Gould, IFOAM coordinator for North America, reported on developing targets and determining the decisive factors for future research cooperation. The most important topic area on Friday afternoon was, however, drawing up a research agenda for the years ahead – and, above all, the commencement of work on the 100 most burning questions for organic agriculture research worldwide.

Emphasising the benefits of organic farming

The true cost of conventional and organic food, a major issue at several events at this year's Biofach, will in future become much more a part of public discussion under the key concept of  'true cost accounting'. The benefits of organic food and organic land management as the most environmentally friendly way of farming could be presented with the help of practical examples. The issues involved are clean groundwater, soils rich in humus that bind  CO2, short transport distances, the reduction of damaging impacts on the environment and the significantly better quality of products. For discussing issues with the public, lines of argument should be developed to rebut the usual allegations and criticisms. But of course, where there are real shortcomings in the organic sector, they should be acknowledged and identified.

In summary we can say that the Science Day can be extremely important to demonstrate  not only to the organic industry itself  but also to the world of politics just how essential it is to have further support for research in the field of organics. An important task is, therefore, to publicise the Science Day much more in advance, to get more actors involved and to disseminate the outcomes on a much grander scale.

The organic industry and organic agriculture would certainly be most grateful to FiBL and  IFOAM EU.

Tip:

http://ec.europa.eu/research/bioeconomy/pdf/a_decade_of_eu_funded_low-input_organic_agriculture_research_2000-2012_en.pdf

Three of the presentations at the Science Day are available on the website of Organic E-prints: http://orgprints.org/31343/

The short version of the TIPI vision presented at BIOFACH  “A Global Vision and Strategy for Organic Farming Research” is available at http://orgprints.org/31340/