UK: Organic Research Centre's conference ends on a high note

Source: Organic Research Centre

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The ORC's 6th Organic Producers' Conference, which took place at Aston University, Birmingham in January 2012, attracted more than 200 participants who provided very positive feedback on the mix of technical, business, policy and other sessions convering wider social and environmental issues.

One of the highlights was the closing presentation given by Prof. Miguel Altieri from University of California at the end of a round of UK appearances. Prof. Miguel highlighted the global challenges facing agriculture, but questioned whether further development of industrialised agricultural approaches could meet the challenge. Fifty per cent of the world's food was produced by subsistence producers who could not access these technologies and only a third were using Western, commercial industrial models, Prof Miguel reported. He highlighted many examples of innovative agro-ecological approaches being used and developed by indigenous farmers in Latin America and other countries, and showed how research could help identify how these systems worked in practice.

However, Prof. Altieri also emphasised that an agro-ecological approach was not just about biology or technology, but reflected a set of principles encompassing food sovereignty, social justice, environmental soundness, economic viability and cultural diversity. He argued that in some situations, such as California, many organic farms were still focused on input substitution and had not fully engaged with these agro-ecological principles. At the same time, there were many farmers using agro-ecological principles who were not certified organic. The challenge was to bring these approaches closer together, building on significant common ground and taking inspiration from the examples of individual producers acting as 'lighthouses' to show the way forward, according to ORC. The debate on CAP reform in the opening plenary, in particular the high profile given to organic farming in the proposals to ‘green’ agricultural support payments and the message of support to organic producers from Defra Minister Jim Paice, also attracted press attention.

The full programme with abstracts of speaker presentations is already available online at ORC's website. Full proceedings including session summary reports and speaker Powerpoint presentations will be published over the next weeks.

Further information about the conference can be found at ORC as well - http://www.efrc.com

Tip: OrganicPortal UK - Organic Cosmetics

OrganicPortal NewsRoom

18.02.2012

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