Organic Farming Innovation Award: call for applications

Every three years, at the Organic World Congress (OWC), IFOAM-Organics International, the Rural Development Administration (RDA) of the Republic of Korea, and the IFOAM Technology Innovation Platform (TIPI) award outstanding organic innovators with the Organic Farming Innovation Award (OFIA). The call for the 3rd Organic Farming Innovation Award (OFIA) is now open!

OFIA is an initiative of the government of the Republic of Korea in remembrance of the 17th OWC held in 2011 in its Gyeonggi Province. The overall goal of OFIA is to contribute to solving problems and exploring potentials in order to increase effectiveness, efficiency and productivity of organic farming, improve viability for environment, plants, animals and human beings. The objective of OFIA is to regularly highlight outstanding innovations and to incentivize organic innovations among researchers, extension agents and practitioners.

The deadline for the application is 31 March 2017. The award ceremony will be held at the 19th Organic World Congress in November 2017 in New Delhi. Please send us your application by using the web form here.

OFIA categories
OFIA is awarded in two categories: the Grand Prize and the Science Prize. The OFIA Committee selects one Grand Prize and one Science Prize winner each based on the criteria of innovativeness, applicability, relevance and impact potential.

The winners receive a monetary award (10,000 US$ for Grand Prize and 5,000 US$ for Science Prize) and a specially commissioned, sculpted memento at a festive ceremony during the OWC. The award earns the winners and their inspiring work more visibility, and helps spread their messages to a wider audience.

OFIA Committee
The current OFIA Committee comprises of Dr. SeungYong Ra (RDA), Prof. Dr. Deog-Cheon Choi (Korean Association of Organic Agriculture), André Leu (President, IFOAM-Organics International), Markus Arbenz (Executive Director, IFOAM-Organics International), Dr. Uygun Aksoy (ISOFAR), Dr. Shaikh Tanveer Hossain (TIPI) and Jörg Schumacher (OFIA Grand Prize Winner, 2014).