Although input use in organic agriculture is strictly regulated, and significantly less contentious inputs are applied in organic than in conventional farming systems, copper, mineral oil, external nutrient input, anthelmintics, antibiotics and vitamins are still commonly used among organic farmers in the EU, partly due to the scarce availability of alternative products and the difficulty of implementing preventive strategies. Moreover, besides the direction set by the European Commission’s organic regulation, only a handful of policy instruments exist at national levels to reduce the use of these contentious inputs. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the results of the RELACS EU-funded project about the current use of copper, mineral oils, external nutrient inputs, anthelmintics, antibiotics and vitamins in organic farming in the EU. The paper is based on six internal reports developed in RELACS which relied on international surveys, in-depth interviews, multiple case study methods, database-based calculations, secondary data sources, plus a survey independent from the reports to map existing policy instruments and voluntary initiatives in the EU aiming to reduce the use of the six input categories. As a result, the paper gives a comprehensive overview of the current consumption of the six contentious inputs within the organic sector, highlighting potential alternative strategies in the pipeline, available preventive measures and the willingness of farmers towards adopting these solutions. It also informs about specific policy instruments already in force, as well as about ongoing voluntary initiatives to reduce contentious inputs. Due to the current dependence of organic farming systems on the six categories of contentious inputs, any sudden phase-out or ban on their usage would do more harm than good to the organic sector. Therefore, gradual, data-driven reduction measures are needed, which require significant further investments in targeted research, and in policy support measures, with the active involvement of agricultural stakeholders.

The scientific roots of organic systems are anchored in the four principles of IFOAM – Organics International: ecology, health, fairness, and care. Scientific skills are needed for the continuous improvement of organic food, systems, and culture. The Forum invited researchers to share their work in the following five themes, with a special focus on interdisciplinary research.

Boosting organic seed and plant breeding efforts across Europe – Highlights and Main achievements of LIVESEED

LIVESEED is a Horizon 2020 project applying interdisciplinary and multi-actor approaches aiming to transform the organic seed and plant breeding sector. The main goal is to reach 100% organic seed of cultivars suited for organic agriculture in order to improve competitiveness and integrity of organic production. LIVESEED covers the five main crop categories: legumes, vegetables, fruit trees, cereals and fodder crops, considering diverse cropping systems across Europe including mixed cropping and agroforestry. LIVESEED explored legal, technical, scientific, and socio-economic aspects that impact the use of organic seed from breeding to seed availability. LIVESEED developed policy recommendations on the implementation of the rules for organic seed in the EU organic regulation and an EU wide router database for organic seed. Innovative concepts for seed health and systems-based breeding have been developed as well as several breeding and selection tools for improved resilience. Innovative governance models for assessing suitability of homogeneous and heterogeneous cultivars for organic agriculture are designed and recommendations made to ease the official release of organic bred varieties. Economic business models for the whole seed supply chain including financing of organic breeding allowing simulation of interventions are under development. Science based policy recommendation of LIVESEED can have an immediate impact on the delegated and implementing act of the new organic EU regulation promoting organic seed and plant breeding.

LIVESEED aims to identify, develop and promote smart practices and teaching materials on organic seed multiplication and production. It places a strong focus on improving practitioners’ access to existing technical information and to make it available online in different languages.

European project on improving the competitiveness of organic agriculture by boosting organic seed and plant breeding across Europe (2017 – 2021)

Organic farming is knowledge intensive. To support farmers in improving yields and organic agriculture systems, there is a need to improve how knowledge is shared. There is an established culture of sharing ideas, successes and failures in farming. The internet and information technologies open-up new opportunities for knowledge exchange involving farmers, researchers, advisors and other practitioners. The OK-Net Arable brought together practitioners from regional Farmer Innovation Groups across Europe in a multi-actor project to explore how online knowledge exchange could be improved. Feedback from the groups was obtained for 35 ‘tools’, defined as end-user materials, such as technical guides, videos and websites informing about practices in organic agriculture. The groups also selected one practice to test on farms, sharing their experiences with others through workshops, exchange visits and through videos. Farmers valued the same key elements in face-to-face exchanges (workshops and visits) as in online materials. These were the opportunity for visual observation, deeper understanding of the context in which a practice was being tried and details about what worked and what did not work. Videos, decision support tools and social media can provide useful mechanisms for taking knowledge exchange online, enabling farmers and researchers to share experiences and practical implications. Visual information, economics, details of the context, successes and failures were considered to be critical factors in good knowledge exchange tools. Online platforms and forums should not be expected to replace but rather to complement face to face knowledge exchange in improving organic farming.

The plant and animal health care strategy in organic farming strengthensagro-biodiversity, protects the environment as well as animal and human health. In addition to fully exploiting preventive options, the use of external inputs such as plant protection products, fertilisers or veterinarymedicinal productsis allowed to prevent inacceptable losses in productivity or animal suffering. However, external inputs need to comply with organic standardsas well as European legislationand aretherefore carefully evaluated before any decision on acceptance is taken.Organic farming systems should aim at reducing dependency on off-farm fertilisers to the lowest feasable level to ensure closed nutrient cycles and avoid nutrient leakage and contamination. This policy brief explains the underlying principles and the procedures for evaluation of inputs, focusing on plant protection products, fertilisers, feed additives and veterinary medicinal products used in organic farming under European legislation. The case study in Annex I on plant protection products provides a full picture on the processes and criteria for authorisation, the assessment of new inputs accordingtothe suitability in organic farming, the history of utilised substances and possible trade-offs and concerns.

The overall aim of ‘OK-Net Arable’ is to increase productivity and quality in organic arable cropping by improving the knowledge exchange of knowledge among farmers, farm advisers and scientists. To achieve this, the project has three objectives: 1. The project will synthesize existing knowledge about organic arable farming and identify the best ways for exchanging this knowledge. Based on this easily understandable advisory material will be selected. 2. It will create a European network of farmers to exchange experiences and discuss the selected advisory material. 3. It will create an online platform that will make the advisory material available for a wide audience of farmers and advisers and will facilitate farmer-to-farmer learning across Europe. This deliverable D4.3 is the final report on the evaluation of the usability, innovation, implementation and transfer potential across Europe of the online platform, where the end-user material of the project can be found.

The European project LIVESEED (www.liveseed.eu) is based on the concept that cultivars adapted to organic systems are key for realizing the full potential of organic agriculture in Europe. LIVESEED will help to establish a level playing field in the organic seed market across Europe, improve the competitiveness of the organic seed and breeding sector, and encourage greater use of organic seeds by farmers. LIVESEED will improve guidelines for cultivar testing and strategies for ensuring seed health. It will develop innovative breeding approaches suited to organic farming. Finally, it will investigate socio-economic aspects relating to the use and production of organic seed and their interaction with relevant (EU) regulations. The LIVESEED project (2017 – 2021) is coordinated by IFOAM EU with FiBL for scientific coordination and consists of 35 partners and 14 third linked parties from 18 European countries. LIVESEED received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 727230 and by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract number 17.00090. By connecting several networks LIVESEED will combine co construction and exchange of knowledge integrating biological, technical, legal, organisational, financial and political aspects as well as market development to facilitate fast upscaling and outreach of various tailor made socio-technical, evidence based, innovation tracks. LIVESEED will generate (i) a tool box of measures and interventions to match production and demand of organic seed, (ii) validated options for competent authorities to reduce the number of derogation for untreated conventional seed, (iii) develop technical solutions for national databases of organic seed including an interface to a European wide router database to increase the transparency on the availability of organic seed, (iv) analyse in depth formal and informal seed chains, (v) explore various business models including checklists for setting up new multiplication and breeding initiatives, (vi) produce technical factsheet on the best practice guidelines for seed production for major crops including vegetative plant propagation material, and (vii) an develop organic seed quality strategy including quality control of farm saved seeds and efficiency of seed exchange networks. With respect to organic plant breeding LIVESEED will provide new concepts for designing and implementing decentralized breeding initiatives for organic and low-input agriculture through (i) establishing networks across Europe (e.g. for apple, brassica vegetables) and fostering public-private partnerships, (ii) combining farmer, value chain or community based system breeding with functional trait-based and molecular breeding approaches, (iii) identifying trade-offs between resilience traits and sensory and nutritional quality, (iv) developing breeding schemes for heterogeneous cultivars and species mixtures, and (v) elaborating different financing models. Considering the plant as a mega organism, including the above and below ground associated microorganism, has the potential to evoke a paradigm shift in plant breeding, and will be elucidated in case studies.

Organic farmers adhere to high standards in producing quality food while protecting the environment. However, organic farming needs to improve continuously to keep meeting its ambitious objectives. The project ‘Replacement of Contentious Inputs in Organic Farming Systems’ (RELACS) will foster the development and adoption of cost-efficient and environmentally safe tools and technologies to: - Reduce the use of copper and mineral oil in plant protection, - Identify sustainable sources for plant nutrition, and - Provide solutions to support livestock health and welfare.

This briefing aims to summarise the most relevant recent scientific publications that critically assess the productivity and sustainability of organic farming methods. The rapid increase in the quantity of scientific literature on this topic reflects the growing importance of the sector as well as the need for accurate data and analysis to inform policy makers. There are currently 2.7 million organic-certified farmers (of which 350.000 are in Europe) who have committed to sustainable farming practices. Can organic food and farming be upscaled in order to contribute to sustainable food system and food security?

In this deliverable of the Project OK-Net Arable project, the findings from peer-review research on the productivity of organic arable crops are reported. Then the conclusions and recommendations for five most important levers which can be used by the farmers are presented. Finally, the most important recommendations of the EIP-AGRI Focus Group on Organic Farming - Optimizing Arable Yields are summarized in order to put innovation on organic farms in its social context.

TP Organics is the European Technology Platform for organic food and farming, and for low-input agriculture. Established in 2008, it brings together small and medium-sized enterprises, larger companies, farmers, researchers, consumers and civil society organisations involved in the organic value chain from production, input and supply, to food processing, marketing and consumption. It identifies research and innovation needs and communicates them to policy-makers. The aim is to leverage the organic sector’s contribution to sustainable farming and food production. Since 2013, TP Organics is officially recognised by the European Commission as one of 40 European Technology Platforms (ETPs). TP Organics published its first Strategic Research Agenda in 2009. This proved very successful, as about a third of the research questions identified gained funding through the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP7) of the EU, or through transnational research programmes (ERA-Nets) and national research projects. With the end of the 7th Framework Programme and the start of the new EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020, TP Organics decided to revise its research agenda. This new Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda is the product of an intensive participatory process, which lasted for a year and a half and benefited from three consultations.

The EU has put innovation at the heart of its strategy for achieving smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. In comparison with earlier EU research policy, the focus has shifted from research for its own sake to innovation with tangible impact. Putting ideas into practice has become the central goal of Horizon 2020, the EU's Framework Programme for Research & Innovation for 2014-2020. This evolution also affects Europe's food and farming sector. Innovation support will be strengthened in the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Among the different measures that are foreseen in the CAP for 2014-2020 is the creation of a European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability (EIP) that should close the gap between research and practice. Organic and agroecological farming have a long history of strong collaboration between researchers and practitioners and across disciplines. The objective of this contribution is to analyse: • If and which opportunities EU innovation policy offers for organic and agroecological innovation. • What lessons EU innovation policy could learn from experiences made with organic and agroecological innovation.