IFOAM World Congress in Italy: principles for an ecological future

“Cultivate the Future” was the watchword of the 16th IFOAM World Congress that was held from 16 – 20 June in Italy. More than 1700 people from all over the world took part in a programme covering a wide spectrum of topics. At the heart of everything were the four principles embraced by organic farming worldwide: health, ecology, fairness and care.

Picture on the right:  Formal opening of the Congress

In the plenary sessions (picture), members of the IFOAM World Board, experts and scientists and a number of prominent guests held speeches expressing their commitment to the organic cause, and in seminars they presented research results and projects. The World Congress celebrated in Modena was one of the biggest in the history of IFOAM.

As well as being a time for exchanging research results and presenting projects the days spent in Modena were a “family gathering” of the international organic movement. A conference catalogue with over 500 pages containing the summaries of the lectures is testimony to the range and depth of the contributions. In Adelaide/Australia in 2005, the previous World Congress produced the four principles for the future of worldwide organic farming, namely health, ecology, fairness and care, and now in Modena/Italy in 2008 these were discussed in the context of the current urgent worldwide problems of climate change, the loss of bio-diversity, ageing societies, flight from the land and the lack of food security.

The speakers in the plenary sessions expressed their key ideas in full recognition of the fact that, with more than 30 million ha of land worldwide, organic agriculture is a force that can no longer be ignored. For example, Vandana Shiva (picture) was confident and robust: “We (organic agriculture, ed.) are the solution! We need a transformation of agriculture and food culture, and it has to happen in the next few years.”

The genetics expert Howard-Yana Shapiro (picture on right) from the USA, who for over 35 years has been involved in projects promoting sustainable agriculture and forestry, explained in his speech that modern organic cropping methods were the future and organic food was the key to health: “Preserving and improving the health of the earth, plants, animals, people and of the whole planet are inextricably linked.”

In an emphatic and convincing statement, the author Francis Moore Lappé (picture on left) appealed for more fairness: we didn’t have to change our human nature, she said, but it was of vital importance to demonstrate fairness day after day. In his speech, the Ethiopian Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher was an advocate of the care principle. The winner of several international awards and President of the University of Asmara examined the issue of responsibility from different angles: “What do we care for?” He gave a long list of issues and came to the conclusion that organic agriculture and, therefore, IFOAM had a key role to play.

Benevolent spirits and positive forces were conjured up by more than just words. For example, the desire for humans, animals and planet earth itself to exist side by side in harmony was underlined at the opening session by a ceremony: a meditative dance was performed (picture below) and a lighted candle was passed round the audience and bread was handed out from a large basket.

The rest of the programme was made up of lots of events ranging from the organic market to the music festival. The consortium Modena 2008, founded specifically to organise the congress, was at work for a whole year and both created a remarkably varied programme and found an impressive number of sponsors. The city and province Modena had obviously made a great effort to live up to the challenge of world capital of organics, health and sustainability. The initiative “È Bio” (It’s organic) arranged a number of events prior to and during the congress. After the World Congress the city should benefit from the exhibitions, workshops for healthy nutrition, food tasting opportunities and organics on the menu in restaurants, and it will keep the issue of organics on the agenda.

Catering for more than 1000 people every day presented the organisers with a logistical challenge. The food was 100 % organic and the lunch packaging was 100 % compostable. Moreover, the organisers bought climate certificates for the entire conference. However, before it started the weather did not behave itself: parts of the Parco Novi Sad, where the big events tent stood, was under water after huge downpours. The opening ceremony on Tuesday evening was interrupted by a storm, but finally Italy’s long-awaited summer did put in an appearance in the remaining days. (Picture: Eating on the lawn)

Some participants found the distribution of seminars and workshops over 15 different locations in the city rather complicated. In some cases it meant you had to walk from the meeting point, the giant white marquee in Parco Novi Sad, for more than 20 minutes across the city centre (picture). The meetings for aquaculture and natural cosmetics were held outside the city in Cattolica and in Sassuolo Terme (2 hours and 45 minutes drive respectively). The early conferences on fruit and vegetables, textiles and wine that took place on 16 and 17 June were also held out of town.

Candidates for the next IFOAM World Conference in 2011 were Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines. The decision to hold it in South Korea was taken at IFOAM’s annual general meeting on 22 – 24 June.

(Picture: Taiwan applying to hold the IFOAM World Congress 2011)

At the AGM the IFOAM Board, a new World Board, was elected. Some members were no longer available, leading to some changes in the composition of the international board. The members elected to the new board are: Katherine DiMatteo/USA, Jacqueline Haessig Alleja/Philippines, Moses Kiggundu Muwanga/Uganda, Massaya Koriyama/Japan, Ong Kung Wai/Malaysia, Andre Leu/Australia, Urs Niggli/Switzerland, Fabio Piccioli/Italy, Vanaja Ramprasad/India and Roberto Ugas/Peru.