The importance of support to coordination of the European organic research

Summary

Europe has been among the global leaders in research and innovation in high-quality food from organic agriculture serving the dual purpose of responding to consumers’ demand in high-value markets and respond-ing to national and EU agri-environmental and rural development poli-cies. There has been — and still is — a great need for research and innovation in organic food and farming because of its relatively recent development and because it is an alternative, which is very knowledge-intensive: a knowledge that cannot always be covered by results from mainstream agricultural research. In order to follow the principles of organic agriculture as laid out in, for example, Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 (1) (e.g. ‘the appropriate design and management of bio-logical processes based on ecological systems using natural resources which are internal to the system’), it is necessary to further develop the research-based knowledge on agro-ecological methods and on careful processing in practice. Moreover, research is needed to assess the de-gree to which organic agriculture complies with the principles and — in a wider perspective — delivers on the promises regarding important societal goals (e.g. reducing externalities).