The Organic Fruit Conference will be held just prior to the IFOAM Congress, and is organised by the ISHS Commission “Sustainability through Integrated and Organic Horticulture”. The conference will cover a wide range of fruit tree and berry species, including Mediterranean species such as olives, citrus, stone- and pipfruit. Papers on tropical and subtropical fruit species are also welcome. Beside production and sustainability-oriented themes fruit quality, economic, public relations and marketing, ecological and human-health issues are considered as topics.

This conference offers an opportunity for researchers not only to present scientific presentations with a peer-reviewed publication in Acta Horticulturae but also interaction with organic fruit producers and marketing specialists.

There will be a wide range of “pre and post” tours that will be offered to participants including excursions with visits to organic fruit farms. Participants can benefit from the possibility to also attend the IFOAM/ISOFAR Congress that will take place right after the Organic Fruit Conference.

Oral and Poster presentations and discussion forums will be organized in (partly) parallel workshops following the main topics of the conference:

• Advances in organic fruit production methods
• The effects of existing or novel organic methods and systems on sustainability
• Fruit quality, economic, public relations and marketing, ecological and human-health issues

All papers will be submitted to the joint platform in Organic Eprints. Papers need to be submitted according to the template provided (to download the Eprints instructions and the template, see here)

Contributions should consist of a short paper on 4 pages, with a maximum of 2500 words if you chose the option A) described below. Otherwise, if you prefer option B), only a 500 words abstract needs to be submitted within the given deadline

Please hold in due consideration that to selected authors will be offered two options for publication:
a) A 4-page paper in the ISOFAR  proceedings, published before the Organic Fruit Conference (for guidelines see the above mentioned website);

b) A 8-page article, in a separately-produced volume of Acta Horticulturae, which will be peer-reviewed and published after the Organic Fruit Conference.  Deadline for manuscripts is June 16th, 2008. For guidelines for Acta Horticulturae manuscripts see ISHS website. The option of publishing in Acta Horticulturae requires an extra fee of 65 € for each accepted paper.  Acceptance or rejection of a manuscript will be based on scientific peer-review by the Symposium Editorial Board. The fee also includes a free volume of the Acta and a complimentary membership in ISHS for one year (includes 10 free downloads of any Acta Horticulturae articles) for the corresponding author.

• Robert K. Prange
• Franco P. Weibel
• Silviero Sansavini
• Bruno Marangoni
• Antonio Corleto
• David Granatstein
• François Warlop
• Martine Dorais
• Rémi Kahane
• Uygun Aksoy
  

• Franco P. Weibel
  Research Institute of Organic Farming (FiBL)
  CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland
  E-Mail: franco.weibel@fibl.org
  Tel.: +41 62 865 72 42;
  Fax: +41 62 865 72 73
  Mob.: +41 79 606 3 808
  
  
• Robert K. Prange
  Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
  Atlantic Food and Horticulture Research Centre
  32 Main Street
  Kentville, Nova Scotia B4N 1J5
  Canada
  E-Mail: pranger@agr.gc.ca
  Tel: +1 902 679 5713
  Fax: +1 902 679 2311