The IFOAM EU Group implements its activities in the work area 'Research' through TP Organics, the Technology Platform for organic food and farming research. The platform consists out of more than 50 stakeholders, including from SMEs, producers and farmers, NGOs, civil society organisations, researchers, universities and consumers. TP Organics plays a key role in identifying the research goals of the organic sector and communicating them to the EU policy makers. IFOAM EU hosts the secretariat of TP Organics since the establishment of the platform in 2007. 

Visit the website of TP Organics and stay updated about the activities of the platform: www.tporganics.eu

Publications

TP Organics was initiated when in June 2007 several organisations from the organic sector got together to discuss a Vision for an Organic Food and Farming Research Agenda to 2025. In 2009, the Vision was further developed into a Strategic Research Agenda for Organic Food and Farming with concrete research goals. In 2010, TP Organics published its Implementation Action Plan that describes how to carry out and follow up research in the organic sector. The Implementation Action Plan also contains a first outline of the role the organic research sector could play in Horizon 2020, the forthcoming EU Framework for Research and Innovation.

EU Research Policy

Framework Programmes (FPs) are the main support schemes through which the EU finances research. With the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7 - 2007 to 2013) coming to an end, the European Commission launched in December 2011 legal proposals for a new EU research programme, the Common Strategic Framework Programme Horizon 2020 or CSF-Horizon 2020. CSF-Horizon 2020 will cover all research and innovation funding of the EU for the years 2014-2020. The food and biotech-industry have already invested major efforts to shape future EU research programmes to their purposes and interest. This may be at the expense of sustainable approaches, such as agro-ecological and organic farming. These approaches deserve, however, full support because they contribute to a healthy environment, healthy rural societies and healthy lives. In addition innovation in the organic sector has considerably driven the sustainability efforts of mainstream agriculture. Therefore, the IFOAM EU Group and TP Organics work to ensure that agro-ecological science and organic food and farming receive adequate funding from the EU research budget and from transnational research budgets within Horizon 2020.

Read TP Organics' briefing paper about Horizon 2020

Knowledge management

Besides their political activities, TP Organics and IFOAM EU aim at improving the exchange of knowledge within the organic sector. Knowledge management is of particular importance to organic farming, as it replaces external inputs by knowledge and information. The multifunctional and multidisciplinary nature of organic farming is a great strength, but also a weakness. It hampers the uptake of innovation, and knowledge sharing between researchers, producers and consumers. These issues are in particular addressed by the project agro-ecological innovation, carried out in collaboration with ARC 2020.

By the summer of 2013, TP Organics will publish an Action Plan for Innovation and Learning that will provide recommendations for better exchange of knowledge and innovation uptake.