Bioacademy – European Summer Conference on Ecological Agriculture Is Becoming a Tradition

European as well as Czech ecological agriculture has asserted itself especially owing to practising farmers, who have proved that it is possible to farm without the use of modern agrochemical substances and with regard to natural resources and animal welfare. Research institutes and agricultural schools come second after the practising pioneers, which is regrettable. Among the pioneers there is Dr. Michael Piatti, an Austrian farmer, who runs a farm in Moravia as well and at the same time is a member of the Ernte ( Austria) and PRO-BIO ( Czech Republic) associations. It was Michael Piatti who was the father of the idea of educating ecological farmers in the academia as well. His experience with ecological farming in the EU and the CEE countries lead him to the idea of holding regular international courses in the picturesque town of Lednice situated close to the Austrian and Slovak borders. His original broad-minded idea of founding a European university of ecological agriculture still seems far from being realized; however, the PRO-BIO and Ernte associations, together with the Austrian and Czech Ministers of Environment, have come somewhat closer to it: we have organized four years of the “European Summer Academy of Ecological Farming”. The academy takes place on the boundary between Eastern and Western Europe and has become a traditional place of encounters between ecological farmers and experts in the field. The main objective of the Bioacademy is to exchange professional information but the personal encounters on an international level are no less important either. Negotiations were held between ministers, politicians, university and research experts, advisors, inspectors and ecological farmers from the whole Europe, both at the University, during field trips, in the Lednice chateau and its adjacent park, as well as during the social events.
Each year representatives of 20 European countries take part in the Conference.

Bioacademy 2003

16th - 18th JUNE, 2003 Lednice

Conference A: Conclusions “Ecological Agriculture: A Chance for the Production Areas”

The subject of Conference A, entitled “Ecological Agriculture: A Chance for the Production Areas”, was the state of affairs in Czech ecological agriculture before the entry of the Czech Republic to the EU and the EU Common Agricultural Policy, as well as the possibilities of getting involved in ecological farming in the production areas with the aim of expanding the range of organic products and introducing new scientific and practical knowledge into ecological agriculture.

Conference A was intended for both ecological and conventional farmers, advisors, secondary school and university teachers, students of agriculture and other people interested in the field.

There were 150 participants from 17 European countries, who came to the following conclusions:

1. The Development and Position of Ecological Farming in Europe
   • Ecological farming is a permanent part of the Common Agricultural Policy and environmental/agricultural programmes of the European Union.
   • The Action Plan for Ecological Agriculture in the EU has been adopted. Action plans in individual countries have been drawn up or are being drafted and are becoming official programmes of the development of ecological agriculture. Dušan Vaněk, a secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, presented the new action plan for the Czech Republic.
2. The Market With Organic Products
   • The market with organic products is the fastest growing part of the food market.
   • Partial problems with sales imply that the crucial point of the further development of ecological agriculture is to systematically create the demand for organic food.
   • The creation of demand has to involve all segments of the society and the state.
3. The Future Development of Ecological Agriculture As a Viable and Gentle Farming Method

   • It is necessary to attain a systematic support of research in ecological agriculture, including international cooperation.
   • Innovative research focused on the development of the methods of agricultural farming has to be carried out, including research by means of the “on-farm method”.
   • Effective methods of the transfer of research results to farming practice have to be developed.
4. Increasing the Social Significance and Prestige of Ecological Agriculture
   • The environmental function of ecological agriculture has to be emphasized, especially its significance for landscape creation and maintenance, for rural development and for improving the environment via sustainable farming.
   • The long-term profitability of ecological agriculture for the whole society has to be explained.
5. The Coexistence of Ecological Agriculture and GMOs

   • Through a joint effort both at national and the EU levels, we need to make sure that political decisions respect the principle of preliminary caution and the prevailing public opinion on the GMOs.
   • Legal regulations administering the use of the GMOs must respect the fundamental human right: the right to choose.

Conference B: Conclusions “Ecological Agriculture: A Chance for Production Areas”

Ecological farmers nowadays receive state subsidies which motivate them to abandon the use of agrochemicals and enter the system of ecological agriculture. However, what are their other, deeper motives? What kind of responsibility do farmers have towards nature, soil, plants, animals and other people? And what kind of responsibility do producers of food products have towards consumers, animals and other people? All these issues were addressed at Conference B of the 3 rd year of the European Summer Academy of Ecological Farming. The conference was attended by about a hundred people.

The motives for making ecological agriculture viable even if the state were to stop being able or willing to provide financial subsidies to ecological farmers must stem from the inner values of the individual; we may therefore call this approach “ethical individualism”. The motive of action of the ecological farmer should primarily involve the awareness of his/her responsibility towards nature (protection of the environment through ecological agriculture) and consumers (production of wholesome and safe food). It was Martin Ott, a Swiss biodynamic farmer and chairman of an association for the cooperation in ecological farming between the West and East, who gave a talk on ethical individualism and the system of values of the ecological farmer.

Alexandra Mossakowska , from Poland, gave a talk on the possibilities of integrating mentally challenged people into life at ecological farms and her experience at the first Polish Camphill located near the Czech border.

Farm animals live owing to the fact that people want to make use of their life for economic ends: they want to acquire their meat, milk, eggs, etc. However, they have gradually stopped being aware of the fact that animals are beings who experience joy, pain and suffering. A strange schism has occurred: the so-called farming animals have been increasingly taken for soulless, inanimate machines, whose only role during the farming process is their economic performance, while domestic animals have become pets, whose keepers often consider them more precious than the humans. Reinhard Gessl, chairman of the Austrian association of the keepers of animals in a natural way, discussed the fact that animal protection acts take animals for beings that have their own value, and pointed out the fact that it is the keeper’s duty, stemming from his/her responsibility, to stable them in the so-called species-specific way, protect them from pain and suffering, and realize how indebted we are to them. In conclusion, he asked the consumers to exercise their responsibility as well, for it is them who by spending money on food decide on the way animals are to be kept and treated.

Dr. Rainer Matejka , a physician and chairman of a German association for natural treatment, discussed some civilization illnesses and their relation to human nutrition. The present-day nutrition of modern population is too rich in fat, sugar and proteins and does not contain enough vitamins, mineral substances, trace elements, fibre and secondary plant substances. Additionally, the heterogeneous substances contained in food have their share in creating allergies and other disorders. Organic food is produced without the use of farming chemicals and chemical additives, and they demonstrably contain a lower amount of nitrates. Furthermore, organic food contains more solids and ballast substances than conventional food. The crucial advantage of ecologically produced food is a higher content of the secondary plant substances. As Dr. Matejka said, while assessing the quality of food we must not ignore the fact that the production of organic food does not pollute the environment and require much less energy during the production process.

The eating habits of the Czechs and the resulting health problems were addressed by Dr. Hana Šarapatková, Head of Endocrinology and Abdominal Surgery in Olomouc, who pointed out the importance of physical activity. She went on to present the results of a research team consisting of herself, B. Šarapatka ( Olomouc University) and J. Dlouhý ( Uppsala University), who mapped the positive influence of consuming organic food on human health. For example, some investigations have shown a positive impact of organic food to male fertility (number of spermatozoids in the ejaculate); however, no results of some systematic research are available at the moment. The disputability of such research mainly consists in the lack of finance (who might pay for the research?), in the complexity of the etiological mechanisms of a number of civilization illnesses and in the fact that the cumulative effect of the residual substances originating in various farming methods on human health is not known enough.

It is rather difficult to ascertain the influence of food on a representative sample of human population; experiments with test animals are much easier to conduct. Dr. Alberta Velimirov, of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute in Vienna, present the results of her research, which showed that rats demonstrably prefer organic feed to conventional feed.

The other part of the conference dealt with consumer initiatives and behaviour. Prof. Helmut Labrenz, of the University of Applied Science in Hamburg, presented his complex enquiry into the behaviour of organic food consumers, carried out in seven EU countries and in Switzerland. Its aim was to find out the motives leading the consumers to buy organic food as well as the psychological blocks which prevent them from making the purchase. The surprising outcome of the study was that the barriers mentioned by the consumers (lower quality of organic products, high price, limited selection, “it’s just some grain for those vegetarians”, etc.) are not based in reality and in fact often represent evading manoeuvres stemming from the consumer’s unconscious, who is afraid of a change of his/her lifestyle and of questioning and undermining his/her present value system. Prof. Labarenz made an impressive account of the vicious argumentation circle of the opponents of organic food. The study has shown that the purchasing of organic food is a question of one’s own value system (not its price), and that the necessary impulse is often created by some critical events in one’s life; it has also proven that the effect of agricultural and food production scandals on increasing the consumption of organic food is very short-term, for fear is a bad counsellor…

Prof. Dieter Beger presented the activities of Ökomarkt, a consumer and farming consultation centre based in Hamburg. It is a civic association which provides advisory services and promotes ecological agricultural and organic food, organizes various tastings and exhibitions, seminars and courses, as well as educational programmes for children and young people, publishes the consumer magazine “Verde”, and administers an internet portal containing information on organic food, organic cosmetics, natural textiles and ecological building materials.

Miloš Růžička , the founder of a Prague-based club of friends of ecological farms, gave a talk on its activities. He depicted the difficulties involved in getting fresh organic food in the Czech Republic, where no sales network with this products is in operation. One of the recent activities of the club was opening an internet shop at www.biopotraviny.cz. Miloš Růžička also pointed out the importance of personal contacts with the farmers and knowledge of the conditions under which the food is produced—the food thus stops being anonymous and has its own identity.

Dr. Michael Rist , the president of a consumer association based in Zürich, presented completely different tasks. The original support of biodynamic farms and farmers has increasingly given way to supporting cooperative ways of farming, for it has become apparent that the key issue of the survival of ecological agriculture will be to change the present-day economic conditions and the whole production system. Dr. Rist maintained that we should transfer from the competitive economy to an associational one. An important part in this process is played by consumers. The association of Zürich consumers therefore publishes an information bulletin entitled “Responsible Consumers as Co-Creators of the Economy”.

During the ensuing group discussion, attended by representatives from the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany and Switzerland, the hottest topic was the way and quality of selling organic products and their presence in supermarkets; other topics included the education of young people towards responsible consumer behaviour and others.

The conference was concluded by Werner Gamerith, an Austrian photographer and the author of a book entitled “ Natural Garden”, who made a slide-show presentation of his glorious organic garden and documented persuasively the ecological complexities in nature. He has also demonstrated the preciousness of the gift that had been left in human custody and the scope of our responsibility towards Earth.

Bioacademy 2002

26th - 28th JUNE, 2002

The main topics of Bioacademy 2002 were primarily the market with organic products, the production of organic milk and biodiversity. As has become a tradition, the Academy took place on the premises of the Faculty of Horticulture of Mendel University of Agriculture and Forrestry (MUAF) and was organized by the Ernte and PRO-BIO Associations and the Czech and Austrian Ministries of Agriculture. While in recent years the Czech farmers have gathered enough experience with the keeping of meat cattle, the keeping of milch cows in the conditions of ecological farming is still rare enough. Therefore, we welcomed the presence of veterinary doctors as well as practising farmers from Austria, Germany and Slovakia.

We have made an old discovery: to produce organic products and foodstuffs is not very difficult but it is not always easy to sell these products at adequate prices. For this reason, representatives of Austrian, German and Czech sales companies specializing in organic products exchanged their experience in the field (these discussions took place within Group 2). Together, they were looking for answers to various questions, such as what can be done to prevent international trade from damaging ecological farmers and how to make it help develop ecological agriculture instead.

What is the significance of the variety of life for its sustainability on Earth? What do ecological farmers do to keep and expand biodiversity? And what could they do? In what way are they helped in their efforts for sustaining biodiversity by the EU common agricultural policy? Such were the topics discussed in Group 3, with experts from the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany participating.

After Milan Rajnoch, Dean of the Faculty of Horticulture of MUAF, said a few words of welcome, a speech was delivered by Michael Piatti, one of the initiators of the Bioacademy, who runs ecological farms both in Austria and South Moravia. Michael Piatti reminded the audience of the recent scandal with nitrofen in Germany and pointed out that in spite of that, the main advantage of ecological agriculture is the quality and safety of foodstuffs, which are achieved by controlling the whole production process, not by subsequent analysing of the end products. “Even after the nitrofen scandal we shouldn’t give up the system of inspections,” said Piatti. He also stressed the necessity of the ecological system of production being transparent – beginning with the seed and ending with the product sold in the shops.

Reinhard Mang , a deputy of the Austrian Minister of Agriculture, depicted the situtation in ecological farming in Austria and discussed the problems related to the integration of the candidate countries into the EU precisely with regard to agriculture.

Rudolf Trebatický , the head of the Department of Rural Development and Environment of the Slovak Ministry of Agriculture, talked about the situation in Slovakia.

Alfons Piatti , the Austrian ecological farmer, declared that ecological farming is not merely a better version of conventional agriculture but a radically different concept, and therefore it cannot only be considered one of the sectors of the agrarian policy, let alone a peripheral one. “Ecological agriculture must be considered an agrarian/political alternative and not a mere peripheral sphere of agriculture.”

Bernward Geier , the director of IFOAM, the international association of ecological farmers, discussed globalization and regionalism as its opposite. IFOAM associates 750 ecological organization from 105 countries; however, it is not a global organization but an international one. Nevertheless, Geier pointed out: “I’m not opposed to globalization when it concerns fair international exchange of information and goods. Our criticism is not turned against globalization but the undemocratic methods of international organizations who put the GMOs into practice if people want it or not.” Geier went on to present a number of solutions to the present problems offered by ecological agriculture – beginning with regionality through closed sales routes to the pricing of the products, which should make it possible for money to be earned “not on agriculture, but in agriculture”.

Expert Group 1: The Keeping of Cows and the Commercial Production of Milk in Ecological Agriculture

Organic milk is still in shortage and the processors, producers of organic yoghurt, kefir and cheese have been complaining of its shortage as well as its lower quality. Ecological farmers are having problems with reaching a sufficient content of proteins and fat in milk, since they lack more substantial feed. Sometimes they make big mistakes in the feeding process. To address these issues, the organizers of Bioacademy invited foreign experts who reported on their practical experience of their research results concerning the nutrition of animals in ecological agriculture, the ways of stabling them and veterinary medicine, especially when the inflamation of udder, the so-called mastitis, is being treated.

Expert Group 2: The Market of Organic Products, Its Development and Suitable Structure

Papers were delivered by Johann Ackerl, a member of the sales organization founded by Ökoland Vertriebs GmbH, an Austrian association of ecological farmers; Bernward Geier, the director of the IFOAM international organization; Tomáš Václavík, the representative of the Czech company Country Life; Karel Matěj, the sales manager of PRO-BIO Ltd.; Juliana Schloserová (ÚKSÚP Bratislava), who gave an account of the situation in Slovakia, Dirk Vollertsen, a representative of Bioland Markt GmbH Bayern, the Bavarian sales company, and Ruth Kratochvil of the BOKU agricultural university Vienna.

Expert Group 3: Biodiversity and Ecological Agriculture

The group discussed the potential of ecological agriculture to help protect and increase the variety of species, biotopes, ecological systems, etc. The relation between agriculture and the protection of environment was discussed, as well as the compensations offered by the common agricultural policy for being involved in the protection of landscape and environment.

Papers were delivered by Eva Keufer, the advisor of the Bioland association in the field of environment and protection of landscape; Gerhard Plackholm, a representative of the Federal Office of Agricultural Biology in Linz; Anna Michalová, who works at the Research Institute of Plant Production in Prague-Ruzyně and deals with the growing of less known crops and their nutritional value; Gabriele Obermayr, a representative of the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, who talked about the regional and national programmes of supporting biodiversity in agriculture; and Bořivoj Šarapatka, who works at the Faculty of Science of Palacký University in Olomouc.

Field Trips to Ecological Enterprises

To prevent theory from dominating, the participants at the Bioacademy took field trips to conclude the Academy. The Moravian route included the White Carpathians, where Pavel Šeliga farms meat cattle and sheep on the area of nearly 300 hectares and thus maintains the landscape. The must factory in Hostětín produces excellent juice made from organic apples that come from old rustic orchards and are of local varieties, nowadays rare enough. The must tastes delicious and is one of the few organic drinks sold in the Czech Republic. The trip then continued to Mr. and Mrs. Hlaváč’s farm in Březí near Mikulov who grow organic beans, chickpeas, hard-grain wheat, potatoes and vegetables. The chickpea stew they offered to the visitors received enthusiastic praise from both the Czech and foreign ecological farmers.

At the Austrian route, the greatest attention was paid to the aforementioned project of the processing of organic products used in the catering at the Moorbad Harbach peat spa. The company concerned, of which half is owned by the local spa and the other half by local ecological farmers, runs several processing plants of organic produce, which then supply organic food to the spa. Another significant part of their organic production is supplied to hospitals and old people ’s homes in Vienna. The whole project includes about 3,5 thousand hectares of farmland.

Bioacademy 2001

On 21 – 23 June 2001, an international conference entitled “Ecological Agriculture: a Strategic Step on the Way of Creating and Pan-European Model of Farming” took place in Lednice. The conference was organized by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forrestry, Environment and Water Management, Czech Ministry of Agriculture, Mendel University of Agriculture and Forrestry in Brno and Czech and Austrian associations of ecological farmers. Its aim was to increase the exchange of experience in the field of ecological agriculture between the EU and candidate countries.

The conference was attended by representatives from more than twenty European countries. Amont the notable guests, there were Jan Fencl, the Czech Minister of Agriculture, Wilhelm Molterer, his Austrian counterpart, Joachim Heine, the deputy director of the Agricultural Directorate of the European Commission in Brussels, Libor Sečka, the Czech ambassador with the EU, Josef Plank, the agricultural councillor of Lower Austria, and other guests.

Papers were given by leading experts in ecological agriculture and human nutrition from the Czech Republic, Austria, Sweden, Germany, Great Britain and Denmark. The range of topics was relatively large and included ecological agriculture and the EU agrarian policy, the support of ecological agriculture, organic food from the point of view of human nutrition, the safety and quality of food, the system of inspection in ecological agriculture, the development of the markets with organic products, and research, consultancy and education in ecological farming.

Information brochure could be downloaded here.