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Building a global platform for organic farming research, innovation and technology transfer

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Abstract

Organic food and farming systems have a great untapped potential to provide the world with healthy, high-quality food that is produced and distributed in an ecologically sound and fair way, but numerous production challenges and barriers slow the adoption of organic practices. Innovations addressing these challenges are not being developed sufficiently because of insufficient capacity in research, development and technology transfer, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Given the limited resources, as well as the specific needs of organic food and farming systems, different pathways are needed to develop new technologies that are compatible with the principles of organic farming. The Technology Innovation Platform of IFOAM—Organics International (TIPI) was established to advance organic farming through research, development, innovation and technology transfer. As a global platform for organic food and farming systems research, innovation and technology transfer, TIPI advocates for three main pathways along which this is expected to happen, each of which comes with a specific set of research objectives and outcomes: (1) empower rural areas, (2) practice eco-functional intensification and (3) produce food for health and well-being. TIPI identified three strategies to build the necessary capacity: (1) develop research methods appropriate for organic food and farming systems; (2) renew partnerships between farmers, farm advisors, scientists and consumers; and (3) integrate technological, social and ecological dimensions of innovation.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to express our gratitude to the following people for their contributions to the content of this manuscript: Reza Ardakani, Vugar Babayev, Mahesh Chander, Jennifer Chang, Kim Seok Chul, Eduardo Cuoco, Malgorzata Conder, David Gould, Andrew Hammermeister, Marco Hartmann, Brendan Hoare, Shaikh Tanveer Hossain, Irene Kadzere, Nic Lampkin, Karen Mapusua, Charles Merfield, Carolin Möller, Gian Nicolay, Toshio Oyama, Vitoon Panyakul, Gerold Rahmann, Mohammedreza Rezapanah, Felix Ruhland, Otto Schmid, Arun K. Sharma, Sang Mok Sohn, Brian Ssebunya, Gabriela Soto, Nazim Uddin, Maria Wivstad, Els Wynen and Qiao Yuhui. Thanks to Kurt Riedi for the figure layouts.

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  1. Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Ackerstrasse 113, Postfach 219, 5070, Frick, Switzerland

    Urs Niggli, Christian Andres & Helga Willer

  2. Department of Environmental Systems Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Tannenstrasse 1, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    Christian Andres

  3. Belcairn Concerns, PO Box 12256, Eugene, OR, 97440, USA

    Brian P. Baker

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  1. Urs Niggli
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Correspondence to Christian Andres or Helga Willer.

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Niggli, U., Andres, C., Willer, H. et al. Building a global platform for organic farming research, innovation and technology transfer. Org. Agr. 7, 209–224 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13165-017-0191-9

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