This year’s Biofach Congress (Biofach/Vivaness, 13-16 February, Nuremberg, Germany) will highlight the ways that organic food and farming addresses urgent global environmental and human health priorities.
Under a main Congress theme of ‘The organic system – healthy in a holistic approach’, thought leaders, policy makers and brand-owners from around world will tackle an ambitious range of topics and discussion points in the 112 sessions scheduled over three days.
The theme is made even more topical with publication this month the EAT-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet, and the debate on the future of food and farming that it has triggered globally.
Policy-makers will face questions on the first day of the trade fair, when the focus will turn to the potential of organic agriculture as a means of overcoming agricultural policy challenges.
Thursday will see a discussion of the potential impact of organics on the costs associated with diet-related disease. Panel members will include BÖLW (the German Federation of the Organic Food Industry, national supporting organization of BIOFACH), which is responsible for arranging the key focal point of the congress together with IFOAM – Organics International (the international patron of BIOFACH), and representatives of health insurance companies and medical nutritionists, among others.
Then on Friday, the focus turns to nutritional education. Topics will include methods of communicating the connection between organics and fair trading as well as the role of nutritional education as a tool for implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
NPG has identified these highlights on this year’s programme.
Trends and big picture data
One of the big crowd-pullers on the first day (Wednesday) will be the World of Organic Agriculture, Statistics and Emerging Trends session, – a definitive look at the latest data on organic agriculture world-wide. Other specialist sessions will look at the picture in China, India and South East Asia, Europe,Brazil and the USA and host country Germany.
Regulation and policy
With leading policy makers and government officials in attendance at Nuremberg, there will a high level of interest in regulation and policy developments. Highlights include Update on the new organic regulation: What changes for farms and companies, Regulatory aspects of international organic trade, and A new kind of responsibility for organic farmers.
Next generation tech/Internet of food
Technology has a crucial role to play in making organic farming more resource-efficient and economically viable. Sessions on next generation tech, and the ‘internet of food’, and Blockchainare likely to be hot tickets.
Farming futures
With interest growing in ‘alternative organic’, or ‘organic+’, Biofach offers a timely update on the Regenerative Organic Certification launching in 2019 with the Rodale Institute, and a look at wider agroecology approaches to the World’s best policies for an organic future.
Organic takeover
Ronald Van Marlen created quite a stir last year with his Silent takeover session – and his argument that a “corporate takeover” of organic is “shrinking organic ambitions”. He’s back this year with a ‘part two’ to his spiky thesis.