Brief News

Revised principles of organic agriculture

On 26 September the General Assembly of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) approved the revised principles of organic agriculture (PDF).

The approved Principles of Organic Agriculture consist of four principles upon which organic agriculture is based:

The Principle of Health - Organic Agriculture should sustain and enhance the health of soil, plant, animal and human as one and indivisible.

The Principle of Ecology - Organic Agriculture should be based on living ecological systems and cycles, work with them, emulate them and help sustain them.

The Principle of Fairness - Organic Agriculture should build on relationships that ensure fairness with regard to the common environment and life opportunities.

The Principle of Care - Organic Agriculture should be managed in a precautionary and responsible manner to protect the health and well being of current and future generations and the environment.

The preparation of the new principles has been inspired by, e.g., the project Organic Revision that identify the basic ethical values and value differences in organic farming. More about the new principles can be found at the IFOAM and the Organic Revision homepage.

SOAR continues

The Danish Research Agency has - in addition to 3 stipends - given DKK 2.1 mio. to the Research School for Organic Agriculture and Food Systems (SOAR) to continue its activities for a new 5-yr period.

This comes after a postive international evaluation and enables SOAR to encompass the many new Ph.D. students that is expected in relation to the new DARCOF III research programme.

New full name for DARCOF

The articles of association for DARCOF has been revised. Notably, the new full name for DARCOF is changed to Danish Research Centre for Organic Food and Farming. The new full name is adopted to emphasize the increasing importance of entire food chain systems in the research related to the new DARCOF III research programme.