Dear TP Organics Members and newsletter readers, Welcome back with the first issue of TP Organics newsletter in 2012. The first four months of the year have been very intensive and, as usual, TP Organics worked hard to get Organic Food and Farming (OFF) recognised as driver of the innovation in the European agri-sector. The future EU research programme is being overhauled and organic farming and agro-ecological approaches will benefit from the new EU research programmes in future will very much depend on our capability to communicate the potential and the importance of organic research to policy makers. In order to have better “Horizon 2020”, our activities are continuously evolving and great achievements have already been reached in the past weeks. TP Organics reached a historical landmark: having two speeches at the public hearing of the European Parliament - ITRE Committee. Our experts, Cristina Micheloni and Claudia Neubauer, explained to the members of committee the innovative potential and the capability of OFF to drive the European agri-sector. In particular we outlined that EU should focus spending on challenges of public interest towards the better and efficient use of natural resources and towards agro-ecological approaches for responding to the increasing demand of food security. This event represented an important milestone, but not yet enough to ensure the right place for our sector. We will continue communicating to European policy

decision makers our vision and our strategies towards a better and more efficient research framework programme, which we also need your commitment. Horizon 2020 is also being discussed at national levels and it is important to send to national ministries comments and suggestions and “to push” in order to get OFF as one of the priorities.

Eduardo Cuoco TP Organics Strategic Relations Manager

Latest from TP Organics:

ITRE Committee Hearing on Horizon 2020: TP Organics was there!

Restructuring TP Organics FACCE Consultation TP Organics is partner of the

project “Agro-Ecological Innovation”

BioFach 2012 Upcoming activities:

NGOs Event June 2012 6

th European Organic Congress

Latest from Brussels:

Conference on Enhancing Innovation and the Delivery of Research in European Agriculture

New Innovation Partnership TP Organics supporters

Become our supporter!

Credits:

TP Organics Newsletter is published and edited by TP Organics Editor: Eduardo Cuoco Authors: Silvia Schiavon, Eduardo Cuoco, Marco Schlueter, Bram Moeskops To remove your name from our mailing list, please, send an email to: info@tporganics.eu “subject: no newsletter” Questions or comments? E-mail us at info@tporganics.eu or visit www.tporganics.eu

TP Organics newsletter 01- 2012

Content summary:

ITRE Committee Hearing on Horizon 2020 (20.03.2012) at the EU Parliament: TP Organics was there!! As already mentioned in the previous newsletters, the European public researches for 2014-2020 will be funded under the framework programme Horizon 2020, which will invest 86 billion Euros on different areas and priorities. In addition to the agricultural sector, some funding lines of Horizon 2020 specifically focusing on sustainable and organic agriculture. Indeed, in the category "Societal Challenges", Horizon 2020 provides research priorities on the "Efficient use of resources and climate change" and "Food security and sustainable agriculture", priorities that affect the agro-ecosystems such as the organic. The budget for each research area has already been proposed, but the European Parliament is still discussing the criteria to guide funding within the individual sectors and priorities. Regarding this debate Cristina Micheloni (vice president of AIAB (Associacione Italiana per l’Agricoltura Biologica) and Claudia Neubauer (Science Citoyennes Foundation) both member of TP Organics, attended on DATA the hearing of the ITRE Committee (Industry, Research and Energy European) at the European Parliament as speakers, submitting requests

and proposals of the organic sector on the use of funds for research and innovation in agriculture. This has been an important goal for TP Organics and the whole organic sector!! Our speakers outlined that public funding for agricultural research should be spent to meet the challenges of collective interest and that organic farming is the agricultural model that can better respond to needs such as the efficient use of natural resources, the agro-ecological balance and the adaptation to climate change. Therefore, the achievement of food security through sustainable production models should have special attention from public research, focusing on biological and agro-ecological systems, rather than agro-industry. With this aim, TP Organics is also continuing to meet the rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs of Horizon 2020 in order to convince them to support the “organic cause”.

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Latest from TP Organics:

The presentations of Cristina Micheloni and

Claudia Neubauer are available on our web site:

http://www.tporganics.eu/

Claudia Neubauer during her presentation at the ITRE Hearing

Restructuring TP Organics - Staff enlargement TP Organics and IFOAM EU Group give their welcome to Bram Moeskops, the new scientific coordinator of the platform, responsible for assisting in the conception of positions in the

area of EU research policies, to raise the scientific profile of TP Organics and to coordinate the activities of the research technology platform.

Bram holds a PhD in Applied Biological Sciences and an additional master in International Relations and Diplomacy. The topic of his PhD was the impact of organic and conventional agriculture on soil quality in Java, Indonesia. After leaving university, he worked as a staff member sustainable agriculture at the Flemish Platform on Sustainable Development and afterwards as a staff member sustainable development at 11.11.11, the umbrella of the Flemish North South movement. Eduardo Cuoco will remain responsible for TP Organics advocacy campaign Horizon 2020 and to oversee the coordination of TP Organics with the position of Strategic Relation Manager.

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6

th European Organic Congress: “Smart change - towards a sustainable CAP”

Copenhagen, Denmark 17-18 April 2012 The 6th European Organic Congress "Smart change - towards a sustainable CAP" started the 17

th of April with a high level

policy panel discussing the CAP reform and the launch of a new dossier to evaluate the EU organic regulations. The Deputy Director General of DG Agriculture and Rural Development, Jerzy Bogdan Plewa, described the Commission proposals for the CAP 2014-2020, a “greener” and more sustainable agriculture policy. He stated that support for organic farming remains an essential ingredient in the policy recipe for sustainable food production. Regarding the proposed debate on the experiences related to implementation of the current organic legislation he welcomed that this will help to safeguard the integrity of the organic farming system and to improve control and enforcement. Morten Lautrup-Larsen, Chairman of the Council Working Group on Rural Development, spoke on behalf of the Danish EU Presidency. The Danish EU Presidency has high ambitions to lay the foundations for a greener CAP, with more focus on our common resources, and a sound basis for the continued development of organic farming in the EU. Denmark is also a pioneer in supporting organic farming with its goal to double the area under organic farming by 2020. The Danish Minister, Mette Gjerskov, will soon present a national Organic Action Plan with several initiatives in order to achieve this goal. One of the main initiatives is that at least 60% of the raw materials for meals at publicly operated kitchens should be organic by the year 2020. "Organic farming has always been a frontrunner in sustainable farm practices. This role has been recognised by EU policy makers since 1991 with the creation of the first EU regulation for organic food and farming. Now organic farming is an established part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)", stressed Christopher Stopes, IFOAM EU Group President, on the occasion of the launch of the 3rd IFOAM EU Group regulation dossier European Organic Regulations - An evaluation of the first three years - Looking for further development." Organic farming is a progressive system that continues to develop. This dossier delivers expertise and ideas on how to reflect recent experiences in the further development of organic regulations, with the aim to reach full integrity and credibility of the organic food system. It provides a valuable input to the evaluation and review of organic regulations and the European Organic Action Plan, planned for 2012-2013." "The dossier describes possibilities to achieve the continuous dynamic development of organic farming towards its aims and principles by giving the possibility to member states to apply rules that go even beyond the European compromise," adds Evald Vestergaard, President of Organic Denmark. "To progress towards a green future for our food systems, the overall CAP framework needs substantial change just as the CAP should provide possibilities to develop the market for green products. A foundation for real change is established when environmental sustainable farming becomes economical sustainable farming. Therefore CAP payments must be re-focused from the production of food to the production of public goods." The complete Congress programme is available on the Congress website www.organic-congress-ifoameu.org

This Congress is co-financed by the European Community, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development. The sole responsibility for the communication/publication lies with the IFOAM EU Group. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information provided

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TP Organics participated at a FACCE Consultation

From the 26th

of January to the 30th

of March 2012, the FACCE [Food Security and Climate Change] - JPI [Joint Programme Initiative] launched an online consultation regarding the climate change effects on agriculture. Joint programming is a concept introduced by the European Commission in July 2008 and is one of five initiatives aimed at implementing the European Research Area (ERA). The objective of Joint Programming is “to increase the value of relevant national and EU R&D funding by concerted and joint planning, implementation and evaluation of national research programmes”. They want to involve Member States and stakeholders to engage voluntarily in the definition, development and implementation of common strategic research agendas based on a common vision of how to address major societal challenges. Therefore, also TP Organics participated in this consultation process, as it is convinced that its visions and solutions provided a valuable and rather different approach. The FACCE-JPI explained that “a detailed climate change risk assessment for European agriculture and food security, in collaboration with international projects” and the focus of the consultation hence was laid on agricultures role regarding sustainable food security under climate change, environmentally sustainable growth, intensification of agriculture, assessing and reducing tradeoffs between food supply, biodiversity and ecosystem services and finally the adaptation and mitigation potential of agriculture towards climate change. In addition, the consultation also asked contributors to comment on the proposed research priorities and in case add new ones. Therefore, we highlighted the very important role of organic agriculture in meeting these challenges and emphasised TP Organics different innovative approaches reaching from improved irrigation, waste management and pest control, resource efficiency and resource saving methods towards new approaches like eco-functional intensification, a broader understanding of innovation with more transdisciplinary and participatory research. However, the point of adapting to climate change for TP Organics provides the most promising outlook regarding a sustainable and long lasting impact in the future as simply mitigating problems implies that we are fighting given impacts, caused by mistakes we have already made, whereas adapting to climate change implies that we fundamentally have to change our visions and perceptions on a long term perspective. Hence as we are convinced that organic is the most promising and therefore necessary way to undertake those fundamental changes our current ways of production and consumption demand. The outcomes of the results of the consultation will be published on the FACCE – JPI website and will play a crucial part in developing their Strategic Research Agenda that will be published in 2012.

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TP Organics is partner of the Project “Agro-Ecological Innovation: from best practice exchange to policy frameworks” The EU is currently debating its new financial framework and policies from 2014 to 2020. The discussion is framed by many uncertainties through the economic crisis, threatened development of rural areas, food security, climate change and other environmental challenges. The EU has put innovation at the heart of its policies as way out of the crisis and as an essential part of the solution. However, often there is a focus on narrow technical innovations, neglecting the complexity of problems and the diversity of possible solutions. As a consequence, the innovative potential of agro-ecological methods is often not recognised by policy makers and therefore society cannot benefit sufficiently. Investment in farming methods that support and make best use of functional biodiversity, that foster efficient nutrient recycling, that improve structure and organic matter content in soils and enhance the resilience of the whole food system in times of climate change and scarce resources are urgently needed. Nevertheless, to reach the goal it is equally important to face the lack of successful research up-take, of adapted innovation and of adequate knowledge transfer. The European Commission names knowledge transfer and innovation as a first objective in its proposal for the legal basis for the new rural development programmes in CAP 2013. With the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) for agricultural productivity and sustainability, a completely new measure will arise to encourage innovation and knowledge transfer in food and farming systems. Within this framework, the project sponsored by Foundation de France, which is running from March to December 2012 and which is developed by TP Organics, IFOAM EU and ARC 2020, is indeed addressing the poor dissemination of innovation practice and the lack of successful knowledge transfer. The two big objectives are to create a network for agro-ecological knowledge management promoting the relevance of agro-ecological practices, and to develop and disseminate the recommendations for beneficial policy frameworks and instruments to foster agro-ecological innovation within EU agriculture, research and innovation policies. In July 2012 during a workshop in Brussels, the first results of the project will be discussed. Finally, with this project we would like to build up a concept to transfer the agro-ecological network for knowledge

management into a permanent knowledge management platform beyond 2012.

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BioFach 2012: Nuremberg, Germany 15 – 18.2.2012

BioFach is the world’s leading exhibition for certified organic products and, therefore, it is the biggest 2012 event in this sector offering a variety of themes, perspectives and impulses for promoting the organic food industry worldwide. TP Organics has been present at the event in order to improve the cooperation among all the actors involved in the organic sector and to empower the importance of it.

TP Organics event took place Saturday 18.2.2012 from 11.00 to 12.00. The presentations of the TP Organics workshop

on "Organic food and farming in the post 2013 EU Research programme" are now available.

Eduardo Cuoco - TP Organics: The political process towards Horizon 2020

Otto Schmid - IFOAM EU Group: TP Organics comments and proposal for Horizon 2020

Susanne Padel - The Organic Research Centre: Knowledge management in Horizon 2020

Urs Niggli – Fibl: Organic research and innovation in worldwide policy

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Event NGOs June 2012 In spring 2011, when the European Commission (EC) published its green paper on the Common strategic framework for Research and Innovation in preparation of the new European framework program Horizon 2020, an informal alliance of more than hundred civil society organisations from all over Europe denounced the dominant focus of the paper on industry and competitiveness. In an open letter to the European Commission and to the European Parliament, they underlined that « The research that is prioritised and funded today will have a decisive impact on the future of our societies and our planet. It is imperative that the EU research framework is geared towards the needs of society and the environment rather than those of big business. » One year later, civil society organisations continue to work on the issue. In response to the Horizon 2020 proposal published by the EC in November 2011, and which is right now under consideration by the European Parliament (EP), they invite members of the EP, representatives from the EC, from research institutions and from NGOs to join their event on Horizon 2020. Their conference on New horizons for a sustainable and just society will take place the 7

th on June in

Brussels. Our societies face immense ecological, social and economic challenges. It is certainly no time for "business as usual", and radical change is needed for society to address these challenges. Research and technology have a crucial role to play, but must - especially when publicly funded - benefit all sections of society. The event will be an occasion to discuss these crucial issues from a civil society perspective.

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Upcoming activities:

Conference on Enhancing Innovation and the Delivery of Research in European Agriculture (07.03.2012 Brussels) Fostering research, knowledge transfer and innovation in the agricultural sector is vital for improving productivity, sustainability and competitiveness. This conference marked an important step in the discussions on the ways to enhance innovation and translation of the research results in the farming sector, as outlined in the CAP reform legislative proposal adopted by the Commission on 12 October 2011. The objectives of the conference were to discuss the main building blocks of EU support to research and innovation for the agricultural sector after 2013. In particular, the role played by networks, advisory services, education and other actors in the translation of research results and in fostering innovative approaches has been discussed (following on from last week's publication of the Commission Communication on the European Innovation Partnerships-EIP: Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability). The speakers stressed the importance of a participatory approach which should include different realities and different sectors of the food chain. Also the concept of knowledge transfer or knowledge exchange has been protagonist. Indeed, one of the problems raised is that too often the researches and innovations produced are not well disseminated. The knowledge does not arrive to whom should use it and put it in practice. New ways of production and consumption should be included in the concept of innovation as well as new way of thinking and communicating. During the closed session, European chief scientific advisor, Anna Glover, stated that “one thing is clear: business as usual is not an option. We should translate the research result into workable solutions on the ground”. The same concept has been expressed by the EU farm Chief Dacian Ciolos.

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Innovation Partnerships: new proposals on raw materials, agriculture and healthy ageing to boost European competitiveness

February 29th

2012, the European Commission has proposed decisive action to meet three key challenges facing our society, in areas that are crucial to growth and jobs: the supply of raw materials, sustainable agriculture, and active and healthy ageing. All three require a more concerted innovation effort across the public and private sector, in order to improve quality of life and position Europe as a global leader. The Commission has therefore launched two new European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs) - on Raw Materials and on Agricultural Sustainability and Productivity - and has endorsed a four-year action plan for the Active and Healthy Ageing EIP, a pilot launched in February 2011. EIPs take a new approach to tackling the whole research-development-innovation chain, bringing together public and private stakeholders across borders and sectors in order to accelerate the uptake of innovation. They each have an ambitious target to reach by 2020, and are expected to start delivering results within 1-3 years.

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Latest from Brussels:

http://www.au.dk/en

http://www.bioforsk.no/ikbViewer/page/home

http://www.boku.ac.at/home.html?&L=1

http://www.caae.es

http://www.cnr.it/sitocnr/home.html

http://www.emu.ee

http://www.firab.it

http://www.organicfqhresearch.org

The Platform is financially supported by:

http://www.hnee.de/HNE-Eberswalde-E1016.htm

www.ifoam-eu.org

http://www.louisbolk.org

https://portal.mtt.fi/portal/page/portal/mtt_en

ROGAU Stiftung

http://rogau-stiftung.org/

http://www.sirericevimenti.it/en/Aboutus/Staff/tabid/226/language/en-US/Default.aspx

http://www.slu.se/en/

www.software-ag-stiftung.de

The TP Organics acknowledges the financial support of the European Community, DG Environment throughout the years 2011-2012. The sole responsibility lies with the TP Organics, and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information provided by TP Organics.

The TP Organics supporters are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information provided.

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Become our supporter!

Since its establishment, TP Organics has been extremely successful: it can currently boasts a broad network of European umbrella organisations, research institutes, national platforms, companies and civil society and is widely recognised among relevant EU officials, the European Commission and in the European Parliament.

It is an observer at the ERA net “Core Organic II” and in contact with other trans-national research initiatives of member states.

In October 2009 the platform achieved a major success! TP Organics convinced decision-makers to take five of its proposals up into the work programme in 2011, which was more than in all the work programmes since 2007.

We hope that you were also interested in being involved in Consortia applications for these and future calls, and you therefore benefited from the activities of TP Organics and will benefit from it in the near future.

Together with the scientists and members of the platform that have invested and engaged time, money and efforts during the last years to build up the initiative, we are now looking for organisations to financially support the future work of TP Organics.

The following categories are offered: Basic supporter: 500 to 2500 EUR (exclude VAT) (small/big organisation) Main Supporters 3000€ per year (exclude VAT) Unlimited – donor For each of them, depending by the category, a number of services will be offered such as three monthly newsletter, your logo displayed on TP Organics web-site and newsletter, free entrance at TP Organics event, publications etc..

If you are interested, contact the TP Secretariat which will provide you the provisional working programme 2012-2014.

We trust that you will help to carry TP Organics successfully into the future!

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TP Organics – Technology Platform for Organic Food and Farming - www.tporganics.eu

Contact the secretariat to get the working

programme 2012-2013:

FormReimbursment

Info@TPOrganics.eu