SAFO News, August 2006

The SAFO project is close to an ending

Dear subscribers to the SAFO Newsletter,

Today is the last day in the SAFO project, and this will therefore probably be the last Newsletter.

SAFO’s participation in the Joint Organic Congress

On May 30th-31st2006, SAFO participated in the joint European Organic Congress as co-organizers together with Qlif on a topic on animal husbandry, health, welfare and food safety (see more on the website http://www.organic-congress.org). The topic consisted of three themes:

THEME 7: Development of livestock production systems

THEME 8: Animal health and disease handling

THEME 9: Organic animal products: quality and safety

SAFO’s 5th and last workshop

The 5th and last SAFO workshop was held in relation to the Joint Organic Congress on the 1st June. 65 participants from 23 different countries attended the workshop. The focus of the SAFO day was the conclusions and main messages from SAFO network, which were discussed throughout the day.

The first session consisted of two presentations with conclusions from the network. Albert Sundrum presented the activities and recommendations of the working group on standard development and David Younie presented a report from the five roadshows held in five new and pre-accession member states. Both presentations highlighted the diversity in physical and social conditions throughout Europe and between old and new as well as pre-accession EU countries and how this affects organic livestock systems. Recognising factors of diversity has formed the basis for the discussions throughout the project, and serves as background for the recommendations from the network to the future implementation and further development of organic livestock production in Europe. Kim Boesen from the DG Agriculture introduced the EU Commission’s proposal for a total revision of the EU regulation 2091/92 allowing the network to better reflect on its ideas and recommendations in the ongoing debate.

Certification of organic livestock farming was also a focus area, together with advisory service and animal welfare assessment. A main conclusion from previous SAFO workshops is that the implementation of the organic standards at farm level does not always reach the high ideals of the organic principles. This seems to be the case both in countries with a long history and those with a short history of organic farming. Therefore, one of the recommendations is to look not only on the living conditions and framework of the animals (that is, what the farmer puts into the farming system), but also consider animals themselves (animal-based parameters) in certification. The arguments for this as well as the practical applicability were in focus in one of the sections.

Small Working Group Discussions were also held in parallel during this fifth and last SAFO workshop and reports from their discussions are also included in this set of proceedings. This may serve as an illustration of the closing remark to the SAFO project: the project may end, but the challenges keep arising, and the discussion will always be relevant to continue.

Summaries of the proceedings in SAFO partner languages are readily available at the SAFO website. At the website, the written proceedings can be ordered as well.

Recommendations to Standard Development

The final Standard Development report is now finished and will be uploaded on the website alongside the proceedings.

Report on questionnaire survey about the implementation of organic livestock production

In 2004, we initiated a questionnaire survey among the SAFO participants about implementation of organic livestock farming in the different countries in EU, both old and new member states. The report based on this survey is finally published in the proceedings from the 5th workshop after a long process of analysis, interpretation and discussions among the authors.

One main conclusion is that most difficulties in implementation are not because of the formulation of the EU legislation but rather due to lack of knowledge, equipment or facilities, or difficulties with regard to climate etc. We emphasise the importance of including the local context and the diversity when implementing organic livestock farming, and we recommend improved education of farmers as well as advisors.

The web site will continue to be active

We will continue to upload documents and relevant links until all the deliverables from SAFO (e.g. our final report) are finished.

We will try to take the initiative to new network activities

In late May, 43 European institutions, including the institutions currently being SAFO participants, went together and submitted a first stage proposal for a COST Action project to form a research network based on organic livestock farming. Unfortunately, we failed and were not invited to submit a full proposal, but we aim to submit an improved version of the proposal at the next call.

Thank you for your interest in SAFO

From the SAFO Steering Committee and the project, we will like to say thank you for having signed up for receiving this newsletter and in case new network activities relevant for organic livestock production and / or food quality of organic animal products are initiated, we may approach you and inform you where you may find new links to new activities.

All the best regard on behalf of the SAFO Steering Committee,

Mette Vaarst

SAFO Coordinator

31st August 2006