BIOACADEMY 2005
29 th June – 1 st July 2005, Lednice na Moravě
The fifth year of the EuropeanSummerAcademy on Organic Farming – Bioacademy 2005 - was traditionally held at the turn of June and July in Lednice na Moravě. The base for its specialist and political programme was provided by the Horticultural Faculty of the MendelUniversity of Agriculture and Forestry Brno. Many opportunities for non-formal discussions arisen mainly during a festive evening programme including organic food tasting at the Lednice chateau, within poster presentations, during excursions to organically orientated enterprises and at other accompanying events.
From June 29 th to July 1 st 2005, 218 participants met in Lednice, coming from eighteen European countries – Austria, Lithuania, Ukraine, Germany, Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro, Sweden, Bulgaria, Turkey, Moldavia, Switzerland, Poland, Holland, Great Britain, Denmark, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The participants were welcome by Mr. Stanislav Procházka, Rector of the MendelUniversity of Agriculture and Forestry Brno. Bioacademy 2005 was held by the PRO-BIO Association of Organic Farmers together with the Bio Austria Association and other Czech and foreign partners. The aim of Bioacademy is in meeting of people friendly to organic farming, starting or developing cooperation amongst them and exchanging opinions and experience at the international level. For the first time, this year Bioacademy was held under the auspices of the IFOAM EU Group.
Personal participation at the conference had been promised from the Czech Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Petr Zgarba, the Czech Minister of Environment, Mr. Libor Ambrozek and Slovak Minister of Agriculture Mr. Zsolt Simon. However, regarding their busyness, only representatives of the ministries took part.
The first day started by the Introductory Plenary Meeting and continued with a specialist programme. At the Introductory Plenary Meeting Mr. Jiří Trnka as a representative of the Minister of Agriculture informed about new ownership of the BIO trademark, used for products of organic farming. The original owner, KEZ o.p.s. (inspection and certification authority in organic farming) has transferred the trade mark and rules of its use onto the Czech Ministry of Agriculture, which, together with the ownership of the trade mark, also takes over activities related, e.g. nationwide promotion of organic food. “This year the Czech Ministry of Agriculture supported the Czech national display of organic farming at the International BioFach Trade Fair in Nuremberg, Germany, and further support is planned for Salima Trade Fair in Brno and other events. Together with other partners we are preparing the Month of Organic Food and Organic Farming – a big media campaign in September,“ said Jiří Trnka and also pointed out that in 2004 - 2006 up to one thousand million crowns will be used for support of marketing and processing organic food.
Mr. František Pojer, the Deputy of the Czech Minister of Environment emphasized the support from the ministry to organic agriculture in the form of science and research and cooperation with other partners. As an example he mentioned Volume Two of The Textbook of Organic Agriculture which has just been published. The Czech Ministry of Environment also cooperates with the Czech Ministry of Agriculture in a special work group for implementation of the Action Plan for the Development of Czech Organic Farming.
Next speech was made by the Slovak State Secretary, Mr. Marián Radošovský as a representative of Ministry of Agriculture of Slovakia, which was a co-organizer of Bioacademy 2005. Mr. Radošovský talked about the state of organic farming in Slovakia, where organically managed land is 4,5 % of total acreage of arable land, i.e. 213 ecologic enterprises, which shows an increase by 75% within one year. He also informed about approval of the Action Plan for Organic Farming to 2010 in Slovakia .
Austria, the EU leader in organic farming, where nowadays 14,5 % of all arable land is cultivated organically, was represented by Mr. Alois Posch from the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, the Environment and Water Management. Mr. Posch focused at the state financial support: “Within last year the government supported organic farming by 19.6 mil EUR and invested 1.2 mil EUR into research programmes.“ He mentioned important decisions of Austrian government regarding the ban on production of GM crops which at the same time affected decisions in other European countries.
Introductory speeches were also made by Mr. Jiří Urban, the PRO-BIO Vice-Chairman, Mr. Michael Piatti, a representative of BIO AUSTRIA Association, a representative of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Prague Mrs. Eva van de Rakt, who talked about political development in Central and Eastern Europe and about the foundation's activities – copoperation at seminars and training courses related to current Europe . It supports interest in organic food, mainly in the target group of children, “consumers are interested in obtaining information, educational work is needed in the whole of Europe “ . Mr. Francis Blake, President of the Ifoam EU Group, in his speech drew attention to problem of intricacy and unintelligibility of NR 2092/91 for farmers. A new direction is being prepared which should include eg. public catering, processing organic products etc., problem of transfering authorities and power to lower levels. He said that hard times are coming for organic farming, but we can affect the development. It is vital to take care of our customers' trust. He also stressed out risks of nanotechnologies. Amongst other speakers at the introductory plenary meeting there were: Mr. Lars Neumeister, who introduced conclusions and recommendations of the workshop related to the Project of the development of organic farming in the Danube river basin, Mr. Susanne Smolka talked about risks of pesticide treatment, using a particular example of affecting a water source, Mr. Martien Lankester introduced the international Avalon foundation supporting organic farming and rural development in Central and Eastern European countries, pointed at numerous options to contribute to the Danube protection, organic farming being one of them, Mr. Marcus Schörpf focused on problems of using GMOs. Member countries should subsidize limits on GMOs, at present time all member countries have been working on it.
Specialist programmes were focused on following topics: non-chemical protection of plants – conference A, animal health in organic farming – conference B, and support and development of Organic Farming in the EU – conference C .
One part of the fifth European summer academy on organic farming was organized as a workshop which focused on preparation of the Action Plan for the Development of Organic Farming in the Danube River Basin .
Bioacademy 2005 ended with specialist excursions to organically orientated enterprises and the participants had a choice of five diferrent routes: The Slovak excursion focused on organic sheep breeding and cheese processsing, in Austria a tour of fields and a grain-growing station was prepared, German route included organic ways of crop and vegetable growing and pig farming and feeding. In the Czech Republic, the Southern Moravian route offered Moravian organic wine tasting and a visit to organic vineyards, while the Jeseníky route included a tour of a non-dairy beef farming enterprise, visit to an organic mill and a tour of organic milk processing plant.
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