‘Way forward in organic plant health care strategies’ Conference, 17-18 November 2022, online

On 17 & 18 November, IFOAM Organics Europe, BÖLW and JKI Institüte organised an online conference on the ‘Way forward in organic plant health care strategies’. 

The first day gathered 150 participants and focused on strategies to minimize the use of copper while ensuring plant health care. In 2018, copper was reauthorized in organic farming for 7 years. Its reauthorization process will resume in 2025 and this natural substance might change of category to not be considered as a candidate for substitution anymore. The presentations of the conference highlighted the strategies to minimise the use of copper in organic farming, but no other alternative had been found yet.  

The second day gathered 100 participants and discussed boarder perspectives such as initiatives to increase on-farm biodiversity on organic farms. A panel discussion gathered MEP Sarah Wiener (Greens/EFA’s rapporteur on the SUR), Dr. Helmut Burtscher-Baden (Global 2000 & Save the Bees and Farmers), Marian Blom (Board member of IFOAM OE) and Karl Kempkens (German Ministry of Agriculture’s Organic Unit) to discuss ‘Organic plant health care strategies and their role in biodiversity conservation and the SUR’. As the SUR is under attack, panellists mentioned the need to support it if we want to achieve pesticides use reduction, while issues linked to the indicator HRI-1 was highlighted.