Science Day at BIOFACH 2014: Speeches and workshop reports

At this session, members of the TIPI  outlined the future context in which research should be carried out, presented the state of the art, and providee input on global organic research and innovation needs.

• Organic 2025 – the big picture
  Urs Niggli, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Switzerland
• A critical review of organic farming research world-wide
  Maria Wivstad, EPOK, Sweden
• Global organic research and innovation needs
  Uygun Aksoy; Ege University, Turkey
• Summary points
  Nic Lampkin, the Organic Research Centre Elm Farm, UK (Session chair)

Nic Lampkin

The session on the presentation of the first draft of the TIPI vision at Science Day 2014 was chaired by Nic Lampkin. Please find below are his summary and discussion points.

Should organic research be focused on certified systems or agreed production standards, or should it be based on the wider ideas, principles and goals of organic farming, recognizing that standards and certification have been developed to support the efforts of organic farmers, not as an end in themselves?

Is ‘Organic 3.0’ a means to developing new perspectives and principles, or an opportunity to rediscover the original principles and goals that have perhaps become obscured by the focus on specialist markets and certification?

Should we separate organic and agro-ecological research, or is there significant common ground, accepting that the term agro-ecology itself is used in many different senses by researchers?

Can organic be THE solution to every problem, or do we need to recognize and find ways of working with its limitations and the trade-offs between multiple goals?

Is the organic concept more critical of science itself or the technologies resulting from scientific endeavour? The scientific method is fundamental to our work, but could organic research provide a basis for rediscovering a critical but evidence-based approach to technology assessment, which is arguably often lacking in current debates?

Does organic research need to find global or more locally adapted solutions? Should the emphasis be more on systems than component perspectives (or systems (re)design rather than technological inputs)?

What is the role of stakeholders in the process – what does participatory really mean? Is it researchers still leading the innovation but carrying out work on farms, or is it more about, for some research/innovation questions, farmers leading the research process with researchers playing only a support role, possibly in the context of farmer innovation clubs or field schools? What about other research questions aimed at different audiences where participatory approaches may be irrelevant? (Lockeretz’s book Agricultural Research Alternatives addresses some of these questions).

* Prof. Dr. Nic Lampkin, Director, The Organic Research Centre Elm Farm, Hamstead Marshall, UK

Chair: Gabi Soto, National University of Costa Rica

Workshop participants combined their own experience with added information, and questioned the hypotheses presented in the speeches by Urs Niggli, Maria Wivstad and Uygun Aksoy.  The outcome of this workshop feeds into the work of TIPI and therefore the development of a vision for global organic food and farming research. Four parallel sessions were held:

• System redesign: ecological intensification versus component research that favours input-substitution (Dora Drexler, Hungarian Research Institute of Organic Agriculture ÖMKI)
• Global and regional adaptation of organic farming
  Roberto Ugas, La Molina University, Peru
• Combining farmers’ knowledge with science (plus combining with «extra-agricultural» societal expectations?)
  Gabi Soto, National University of Costa Rica and Stefan Lange, Thünen Institute, Germany
• Organic farming is one solution – how do we collaborate with other sustainable farming concepts
  Peter von Fragstein, Kassel University, Germany

Video about the TIPI session and workshop with a summary of the workshop by Gabi Soto.

Chair: Dora Drexler, Hungarian Research Institute of Organic Agriculture ÖMKI, Hungary

The participants started by characterizing the state-of-the-art of research design structures in their countries. There were countries like Denmark, where in the last ten years a strong shift from component research towards system approach could be observed. Other institutions, like FiBL (CH) or the Organic Research Centre (UK), have a tradition of identifying research problems on the field scale, putting the challenges into whole farm context, applying a system redesign, and doing component research on those parts of the new system that need novel solutions. It was noted that pressure from society and also from the farmers push research policy towards a systemic approach. This is the case e.g. in Germany, where expectations of the society regarding agriculture steadily increase. It was also noted that regions with poorer economies and less resources for research funding, such as Central-Eastern-Europe have a much less structured scientific landscape regarding organic farming than Western European countries.

After the short status review, the question who do we do research for was tackled. The audience of organic research has been identified to be multi-lateral, starting with farmers, the scientific community, and including policy makers and the wider public. It was agreed that methodologies for addressing the research needs of these groups already exist and are practiced. An important point was made however in favour of applying different evaluation criteria for research work done for different audiences and with different methodologies. The widespread scientific metrics (IP, and other indexes) come short in valuing research endeavours using participatory processes or done for policy making.

A further question was if organic farming needs a silver bullet solution, or if regional or local solutions should be sought for. Participants agreed that a silver bullet solution, such as the use of copper against fungal infections is not sustainable on the long run, and bears high risks for production. Good and generally applicable solutions are needed; however, they should be embedded in a system approach that takes into consideration the local circumstances influencing their application. Diverse solutions for the same problems were favoured, as they can provide worldwide a higher level of production security. Regional and crop dependent solutions, and the substitution of existing “silver bullets” by new practices were mentioned.

Finally the topic of research funding was discussed. For the long-term practice of system approach research secure funding possibilities are essential. Currently funding is the largest limiting factor of organic research overall. A change in this respect may bring huge developments with regards to organic solutions and their application.

Chair: Roberto Ugas, La Molina University, Peru

The group on Global and Regional Adaptation of Organic Farming, with participants from 6 countries and 3 continents, stressed the importance of conducting regional gap analysis with regards to specific crops, research capacities and funding opportunities. In particular, it was interested in comparative and long-term research for major agroecosystems, in order to inform better policies and regulations. Among the main adaptations required regionally were mentioned climate change, use of nitrogen, pest and disease management in tropical regions, food safety, short marketing channels and science-based standards.

Chair: Gabi Soto, National University of Costa Rica (summary),  and Stefan Lange, Thünen Institute, Germany

The relationship between researchers and producers need to be improved and address at all levels. Producers or farmers must participate in the research question development process. Can we really create a platform where farmers and researchers interact to improve communication? Can this be facilitated trough TIPI and INOFO, or should this be address at the local level? What could be the role of IFOAM, and its self-organized groups (TIPI AND INOFO) at that local level to facilitate this process?

Processes that IFOAM and its SOS could facilitate is the documentation of success stories, researchers as well as farmers doing real participatory research, with an effective communication flow. And to support the development of Organic Production Priority Research lists, locally adapted and dynamic.

Researchers should be evaluated by founders and institutions, not just in the number of papers published in journals, but the impact working with farmers (farmers as evaluators?). Should TIPI participate in the development of Basic Research Principles, which should include transparency, respect for farmers knowledge, participatory, inclusive, etc.

In the relationship with the market and consumers, farmers had lost the ownership of the Brand ORGANIC. It is not clear who is managing the brand anymore. This feeling was shared in some countries in Europe and in Latin America. How can we facilitate producers’ empowerment of the Brand ORGANIC?

Chair: Peter von Fragstein, Kassel University, Germany

• Organic research has to be possible beyond the standards (although this creates serious problems from the controlling point of view even on pure research farms which normally belong to one sometimes even more than one producer organisation.)
• What really are criteria for organic sustainable farming or simply only for sustainable farming?
• How sustainable is organic agriculture?
• Organic farming & the myth of closed systems: Which steps should be demanded (by standards) to ensure nutrient (re)cycling whenever possible?
• To which extent best farming practice should become part of organic standards?
• With regard to potential environmental hazards should environmental audits be included into inspection procedures?

Prof. Dr. Sang Mok Sohn, Dan Kook University South Korea, President of the International Society of Organic Agriculture Research (ISOFAR)

Dear Mr. President,

organizers of this Science Day,

Dear speakers, colleagues, organic friends,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It’s indeed an honor for me to have the chance to summarize, conclude and comment on what we have experienced together during the last few hours and to give a perspective on the future evolution of the research that underlies an organic agricultural approach based on science.

First of all, I would like to thank you for all your efforts to make this meeting a successful milestone for the further development of worldwide organic agriculture!

I am sure that today's event will be remembered for a long time in organic research history. Several interesting and valuable approaches and ideas have been proposed and strategies presented and discussed here in this Science Day meeting; they will indeed play a valuable role in further enhancing research in organic agriculture. I hope that the main results of today's meeting will be distributed worldwide to a broader audience.

I do not want to try to synthesize main tracks of research methodologies and content that may come up in the next years although I derive my personal conclusions from what I have heard today for my own work and department at Dankook University and for ISOFAR. This is due to the fact that I consider diversity and heterogeneity more than a necessity on organic farms, where planned and associated biodiversity is a cornerstone for nature conservation and landscape forming. Organic agriculture's practical approaches--more than in mainstream agriculture--have to respect and use specific on-site conditions; thus, use of standard strategies seems to be a doubtful approach to drive organic agriculture successfully forward worldwide. Hence, translating the German saying "Alle Wege führen nach Rom"--"All ways lead to Rome"--I’m convinced that heterogeneity in research approaches and methodologies are not only a function of the specific site conditions and must be adapted but also a function of the individual approaches researchers do follow. Let us keep diversity in our research methods, and let us keep our thinking free from unnecessary ideologies.

We may complain that we have thought to convince our mainstream researcher colleagues on a better and broader scale that organic agricultural approaches have to be considered at least as a force to be reckoned with. Yes, but it is also true that "Rome wasn’t built in a day".

Dear friends, that we couldn’t convince people on a broader scale should at least teach us to try harder in future and to enlarge the number of scientists active in delivering research results that shows organic as a convincing option for solving the problems of food safety and food security. Our success isn’t only a problem of quality; it is also a function of quantity,  leadership and the number of flagship institutions. I would also like to underline that we need more official international institutes as well as recognized scientists involved in our research activities.

Here, IFOAM/TiPi and ISOFAR should further act together convincing and and recruiting e.g. CGIAR institutes as well as reputable scientists. TIPI binds together organization as members while ISOFAR accepts individuals as members only, enabling both institutions to grow in a way that is fair and encouraging.

It is my hope that meetings like the OECD supported organic conference to be held in California on the 1st  and 2nd of November 2014 be organized by ICROFS. It may act as a breakthrough for our aims, that have their driving forces in our common concerns on the future of this endangered globe.

As many of you already know, ISOFAR is delivering the scientific basis for the First World Organic Expo in Korea in Sept 2015. WOE aims to highlight what Organic Agriculture really means, why we should eat organic food, and what an organic lifestyle entails. Displays of the WOE will be based on scientific papers. Thus, in order to entail the recent publications and to show up the state-of-the art I invite all researchers to deliver their recent publications that fit to the theme of WOE to me.

Our next  international event is the IFOAM organized Organic World Congress that is to be held in Istanbul this year. This is the fourth time ISOFAR will organize the scientific track as we have done successfully in Adelaide 2005, Modena 2008, and Namyangju 2011. Here, we act as twins. We should not give up this cooperation.

I think this WOE is not a job for ISOFAR only, but should be a task for IFOAM, as well. Therefore, I hope ISOFAR can work together with IFOAM to organize future World Organic Expos, as IFOAM organizes OWC with ISOFAR.

Dear friends, we all wish TIPI great success in getting research funds from CGAIR, World Bank, or any other international funding organization, in order to enable a broader realization of international research projects that is urgently needed.

Again, a warm thanks to all of you who have traveled over long distances to participate in this meeting, and all the speakers and panels who have contributed their brilliant ideas and suggestions.

Thank you very much. Have a good trip back to your homes and work places.

Take care and see you again in Istanbul, or at least, next year when we meet here again!