Measuring Impact Of Organic Agriculture Research: Canada’S Organic Science Cluster As A Case Study

Summary

Organic research is tailored to advancing the organic sector, by increasing yield and quality, reducing environmental and health impacts, and improving animal welfare. The practices from organic research can also be applied on non-organic operations. Recently, however, there have been critiques of organic research in particular: that results are not applicable for producers. Canada’s Organic Science Cluster (OSC) has produced a substantial number of results that are intended to be of use to Canadian producers. A total of 386 new knowledge items were reported from 2009 to March 2019 in OSC. Going forward, assessment of impact of these results will be undertaken. Organic research can also have other types of impact. We present results about the number of highly qualified people (HQP) trained over the past ten years in OSC, as another measure of the impact of organic research.