How organic breeding adds value to the food chain – 15 October 2020, online

On 15 October 2020, FiBL and BÖLW in cooperation with the LIVESEED project organised “How organic breeding adds value to the food chain”. It called the attention of European processors, wholesalers and retailers on the importance of organic breeding for the future growth of the organic sector. Watch the event again.

In the morning, Monika Messmer (FiBL) provided an overview of the importance of the organic breeding in the context of organic agriculture. Following, Herbert Völkle, the Director of GZPK, presented their work and a specific project on organic sunflowers. Dr. Wytze Nauta of the Cooperative Bio-KI u.a, continued on organic livestock breeding and its main challenges.

Sigmund Walbaum from NATUARATA International talked about retailers’ perspective on organic breeding and the fair breeding project in which the members of NATURATA are involved for more than 14 years. Freya Schäfer from FiBL Germany continued with a presentation of the current situation related to the financing strategies of organic breeding. At the end, Mitja Seyffert from BÖLW showed the general concept of pool funding strategy.

A workshop with two parallel sessions on value-chain collaborations to boost organic breeding followed the seminar. The first identified and discussed benefits and barriers for value-chain actors to engage in cross-sector cooperation. In the second session, participants worked on consumer-targeted communication arguments and using them in organic food marketing strategies, connected to LIVESEED’s organic plant breeding campaign #BreedingABrightFuture.

Presentations are available on OrganicEPrints and the event recording on YouTube.