Tackling the future challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry - vTI

RAHMANN G & GODINHO D (Ed.) (2012): Tackling the Future Challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry.
Proceedings of the 2 nd OAHC, Hamburg/Trenthorst, Germany, Sep 12-14, 2012
Research coordination and initiation – a Swedish research agenda for organic food
and farming
EPOK’s activities concerning research cooperation aim to ensure relevance and quality in organic
food and farming research. These activities also involve promoting cooperation and interdisciplinary
research, nationally and internationally. One important coordination activity concerns the development
of a research agenda on organic farming and food systems during 2012. The research
agenda is being developed in an open process together with stakeholders in the food chain, researchers
and research funding agencies. Synthesising knowledge within different research areas
(see priority areas above) to present existing knowledge and to identify future research needs is an
important tool in this process.
The new research agenda will focus on the main future challenges for the agricultural sector, which
includes ecological, socio-economic and food and health challenges, and will specifically address
the contribution of organic agriculture to meeting these challenges. It will also include specific topics
of high relevance for organic agriculture in Sweden and will emphasise the importance of
strengthening interdisciplinary research and international cooperation.
Another aim is to serve as decision support for prioritising topics in research calls and as inspiration
for researchers. For around two decades there have been directed research calls towards organic
food and farming in Sweden and this research agenda is specifically aimed to be a steering document
for coming directed calls.
Future challenges
An important task for EPOK is to fulfil the expectations and needs of scientifically based
knowledge about organic food and farming in society and the agricultural sector. New knowledge
that contributes to increased sustainability of organic production and organic food systems will also
increase the significance of organic farming in forming sustainable future food systems.
A main challenge for EPOK is to develop communication activities and research collaboration, as it
is essential to achieve a close dialogue and knowledge exchange between stakeholders, and between
practice and research, in order to succeed in solving the future challenges of organic food and farming
systems.
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