EU Commisioner Dacian Ciolos sets out vision for organic farming in video message to Dutch organic trade fair BioVak on 19th January 2012

ORC's 2012 conference ends on a high note

Miguel Altieri sets out the challenge for organic food and farming systems to fully integrate agro-ecological principles

ORC's 6th Organic Producers' Conference, which took place at Aston University, Birmingham, from 18th-19th 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.

A highlight for many was the closing presentation given by Prof. Miguel Altieri from University of California, Berkeley, at the end of a whirlwind round of UK appearances. Miguel highlighted the global challenges facing agriculture, but questioned whether further development of industrialised agricultural approaches could meet the challenge. 50% of the world's food was produced by subsistence producers who could not access these technologies and only a third using Western, commercial industrial models. 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 work in practice.

However, 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' or beacons to show the way forward.

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, with Farmers Weekly covering it in its printed edition of 20th January as well as on-line.

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Proceedings are being prepared for on-line publication

The full programme with abstracts of speaker presentations is already available on-line. Full proceedings including session summary reports and speaker Powerpoint presentations will be published over the next few weeks. Further information about the conference can be found here.