A Global Vision and Strategy for Organic Farming Research. First Draft.

Summary

Organic agriculture world-wide offers the promise of a future to produce and distribute food and other farm products in a healthy, ecologically sound, truly sustainable and fair way. The full benefits of organic agriculture are just now being realized—from ecosystem services to the provision of healthier food - yet, to reach its full potential organic farming needs to address many challenges. While organic agriculture has grown in strength and is in the most favorable position it has ever been in with respect to market conditions, government policies and international institutional support, it still does not have adequate resources to continue its expansion.
The Technology Innovation Platform of IFOAM (TIPI) has developed a vision and an agenda to advance organic agriculture through research, development, innovation and technology transfer.
TIPI’s vision recognizes that current technologies based on heavy use of external inputs that are toxic and pollute the environment come with a price. Investments in ecosystem services and the development of technologies that are productive, stable, adaptable, resilient, and fairly shared are much more likely to sustain the world’s population in a rapidly changing environment.
Sustainable pathways to innovation will require engagement of all stakeholders in a science driven multi-disciplinary approach. Such an approach seeks to
(1) Empower rural areas,
(2) Provide eco-functional intensification that produces food and ecosystem services, and
(3) Provide food for the health and well-being available to all.
Organic agriculture must build the capacity to fulfill the world’s food needs for the entire population if it is to fulfill its mission.
The new paradigm proposed by TIPI is founded upon a whole systems approach, the engagement of farmers, researchers and other practitioners in a co-innovative approach; and open access technologies that are readily adapted to local conditions. While there are barriers and bottlenecks that will need to be overcome for this vision to be realized, TIPI calls upon the organic community to support its 14 point action plan to advance organic agriculture in a forward-thinking and innovative way.