News
9th EUROPEAN SUMMER ACADEMY ON ORGANIC FARMING , June 24-26, 2009 in Lednice, Czech Republic
"Organic Farming - A Response to Economic and Environmental Challenges"
This year’s Bioacademy, to be held on 24th – 26th June 2009 – at the end of the Czech Presidency of the EU, reacts, in its focus, to the economic crisis and environmental change currently taking place.
Bioacademy is one of the most important conferences on organic farming (OF) in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. As usual, it will be held in the premises of the Horticultural Faculty of the Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry, in the South-Moravian town of Lednice. Not only is Bioacademy an opportunity to gain and exchange specialist information, it is also a platform for an annual meeting of about 200 people from more than 20 countries, including farmers, researchers, NGO workers and people from state administration within branches close to organic farming. Call for papers
More2nd International conference on the organic sector development in Central/Eastern European and Central Asian countries
... takes place in Tbilisi, Georgia from 10th to 11th of September, 2009 followed by excursion. More
TWN-OFAI Regional Conference on 'Outstanding Organic Agriculture Techniques' September 10 -11, 2009. at Bangaluru, Karnataka
This announcement is about an international knowledge-sharing conference on “Outstanding Organic Agriculture Techniques” being organised by the Organic Farming Association of India (OFAI) and the Third World Network at Bangalore (Bengaluru) city (India) from September 10-11, 2009.
The conference will host participants exclusively from South Asia countries including India, Bhutan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal and Myanmar.
The conference will be held at the GKVK campus of the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) in Bangalore city. TWN has agreed to assist OFAI by co-sponsoring this regional meeting for the promotion of sustainable and organic farming. More
First African Organic Conference 2009 (May 19th-22nd,2009), Kampala, Uganda
More than 200 participants from all over the world have participated in the congress, which was focused on evaluating the opportunities for Organic Agriculture in Africa.
The upcoming ISOFAR Newsletter will give a report on the highlights of the event!
Selected presentation can be downloaded here:
- U.Köpke, Institute of Organic Agriculture: Research in Organic Agriculture:essential for successful system management and technological evolution
- M. K. Muwangacer, National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda: Impact of PGS, Farm Adoption of ICS and Group Marketing on Household Income
- N. Halberg & L. Andreasen, International Centre for Research in OrganicFood Systems: Challenges in meeting European consumer demands for organic products from Africa
- G. Rahmann,
German Federal Research Institute for Ruralareas, Forestand Fisheries(vTI): Organic farming in Africa–between global food markets and food sovereignty–
- M. Schneider, FiBL: Long-term farming systems
comparisons in the tropics:First results from Kenya - Sssekyewa C. & Muwanga M. K.: Biotechnology in Organic Agriculture in Africa: a myth or an over sight
- P. Van Damme: Indigenous biodiversity as a potential source of crops for future satisfaction of consumer demand
- D. Neuhoff, University of Bonn & M. Tadesse, Ambo Plant Protection ResearchCenter: Potential and research needs for home made bio-pesticides for African Organic Agriculture
- B. van Elzakker, Louis Bolk Institute: Post harvest handling and export market quality issues for organic products in Africa
- The Book of abstracts is available here.
National Platform of Organic Farming in Hungary
A National Platform of Organic Farming has recently been established in Hungary.
QualityLowInputFood - The Integrated Project QualityLowInputFood ended in April 2009.
The project aims were to improve quality, ensure safety and reduce cost along the organic and "low input" food supply chains through research, dissemination and training activities.
International Scientific Conference “Fostering healthy food systems through organic agriculture – focus on Nordic-Baltic region” in August 2009 in Estonia
From August 25-27, 2009 the international scientific conference “Fostering healthy food systems through organic agriculture –focus on Nordic-Baltic region” (NJF seminar 422) will take place in Tartu, Estonia. More
International Conference on Organic Agriculture in Scope of Environmental Problems, 03-07 February 2010, Famagusta, Cyprus Island
ICOA is a unique opportunity for scientists, researchers, scholars, agriculture professionals and N.G.O managements to share their works and experience, exchange ideas and find new cooperation opportunities.
New ISOFAR Board elected in Modena
(July 7, 2008) A new ISOFAR Board was elected June 21, 2008 at the ISOFAR general assembly in Modena, Italy. The Board consists of twelve members. The Executive Board has three members: Professor Dr. Ulrich Köpke (President), Dr. Niels Halberg (Vicepresident) and Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hamm (Treasurer). More
Proceedings of the second ISOFAR Conference
(July 1, 2008) From 18 to 20 June 2008 the second conference of the International Society of Agriculture Research was held in Modena, Italy, in conjunction with the 16th IFOAM Organic World Congress OWC . The proceedings, which are now available in the FiBL shop (PDF/hardcopy) contain 380 papers related to all aspects of organic farming.
The first volume deals mainly with various aspects of organic crop production, which traditionally represent the largest share of all papers submitted to conferences on organic agriculture.
The second volume gives insights into the increasing research activities on animal husbandry, socio-economics, interdisciplinary research projects. Furthermore it contains the papers for the five workshops of the Integrated project Quality Low Input Food which was held as part of the ISOFAR conference.
International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems
(June 10, 2008) The International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems (ICROFS) is a newly established centre without walls funded by the Danish Ministry of Food and Agriculture. ICROFS has the objective of supporting the production and use of organic food through research. The centre initiates, supports and coordinates research of high quality in Denmark, Europe and internationally by involving researchers from a large number of universities and research institutions. The centre builds on the 10 years of experience of DARCOF (www.darcof.dk) but will have an international mandate and board with members from Africa, Asia, America and Europe.
First Volume of the ISOFAR Scientific Series published: Long Term Field Experiments in Organic Farming
(May 18, 2006) The first volume of the ISOFAR Scientific Series has now been published. This book series presents the results of organic farming research carried out by members of the ISOFAR working group on long term field expperiments (LTE).
The volume "Long Term Field Experiments in Organic Farming" contains a selection of 12 long-term experiments conducted under different site conditions in Germany, the USA, Italy, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria and Israel. Each experiment has a unique concept and scientific approach. But their common objective is to investigate characteristics of Organic Agriculture regarding key parameters of soil fertility, crop yield and quality.
Proceedings of the first EUCARPIA symposium on Organic Plant Breeding now available
(February 8, 2008) The first EUCARPIA symposium on Organic Plant Breeding - Plant breeding for organic and sustainable, low-input agriculture: dealing with genotype-environment interactions - took place in Wageningen in November 2007. EUCARPIA is the European Association for Research on Plant Breeding. The event was organised in cooperation with Cost Action 860 (COST860 - Sustainable low-input cereal production: required varietal characteristics and crop diversity, SUSVAR), the European Consortium of Ecological Plant Breeding ECOPB, ISOFAR and the the Graduate School Production Ecology & Resource Conservation and Wageningen University.
The proceedings are now available at the Organic Eprints archive.
New book organic food safety and quality
(January 24, 2008) Due to increasing consumer demand for safe, high quality, ethical foods, the production and consumption of organic food and produce has increased rapidly over the past two decades. In recent years the safety and quality of organic foods has been questioned. If consumer confidence and demand in the industry is to remain high, the safety, quality and health benefits of organic foods must be assured. The new Handbook of organic food safety and quality provides a comprehensive review of the latest research in the area.
The Handbook of organic food safety and quality issued in 2007 provides a comprehensive review of the latest research in the area.
- Handbook of organic food safety and quality. Edited by J Cooper, C Leifert and U Niggli. Woodhead Publishing, Cambridge. More
