Knowledge transfer: A summary of research conducted under the German Federal Programme for Organic Agriculture and other forms of Sustainable Agriculture

Summary

Knowledge transfer was an important part of the BÖL programme from the start. Particular emphasis was placed on measures and projects to increase knowledge transfer from research to producers, processors and consumers. Also, in the other direction, intensive exchange between the ‘base’ (pro-ducers and practitioners) and the researchers was always important; this is the only way to ensure that the real problems of producers are identified. Over the years numerous events, workshops and conferences have been organised, through which a large number of practitioners from all sectors and regions have been reached. For example, between 2004 and 2006 a total of 355 events were held at coordination level, to allow regional advisers and representatives of associations to provide knowledge transfer themselves in the form of organising events and sessions within existing events, and thus reach the target audience directly. Between 2006 and 2008 a total of 769 events were held to transfer knowledge, which again reached a large number of stakeholders in all regions of Germa-ny.
The most important and practically relevant results of the various projects on the market and market-ing issues have been summarised and presented. These findings were able to be incorporated into several strategic concepts. The studies analysed have shown that the selling point 'organic' alone is no longer sufficient for consumers to buy organic products, but that for companies that produce, process or sell organic products, credibility has to be the highest priority. All activities of the economy must be environment friendly, socially, morally and ethically sound, and inflict no harm. The problem here is that consumers are not, or not yet, ready to pay the higher price for their higher aims. It will be one of the great challenges of this century to provide information and educational work in the global context to achieve the corresponding fair prices at the retail level.
The aim of another project was to combine the experience of practitioners with information and expe-rience of advisers and researchers and to work out concrete and practical recommendations on re-duced-tillage systems in organic agriculture, which were published in a book. Since 2007 (and also in the previous project from 2003) under the advisory-practice network several working groups have been set up, which developed farm-comparison and farm-enterprise-evaluation methods (for pork, poultry and dairy) and have introduced those within consulting organisations. Two new working groups were subsequently created (for agriculture and horticulture), structured in a similar matter, which also developed methods, tools and training for consultants. More ‘know-how’ events were held in 2008 which could heavily build on past experiences and successes. Here also, other actors within the organic food industry have been reached, who were previously not sufficiently informed about new results from research and development. Further results from the BÖL research on knowledge transfer are regularly published at www.bundesprogramm-oekolandbau.de.