March 21-23, 2007: 3rd QLIF Congress
About
The congress 'Improving Sustainability in Organic and Low Input Food Production Systems' , was held March 20 – 23, 2007. It was the 3rd in a series convened as part of the EU-funded Integrated Project ‘Quality Low Input Food’ QLIF, presenting papers from the QLIF and from other projects. Previous congresses have taken place in the UK (2005; ‘Organic Farming, Food Quality and Human Health’) and in Denmark (2006; ‘Joint Organic Congress’) /. The next one will take place in Modena, Italy, in conjunction with the World Congress 2008 of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM).
The 3rd QLIF Congress was organised by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL in cooperation with the University of Hohenheim. It is held in parallel with the 9th Scientific Conference on Organic Agriculture in the German-speaking countries, entitled 'Between Tradition and Globalisation' (‘Wissenschaftstagung’, which has been under the auspices of the Foundation Ecology & Agriculture SOEL since 1991).
‘Improving quality and safety and reduction of cost in the European organic and 'low input' supply chains' (QLIF) is an Integrated Project under the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission which started in March 2004 and will end in February 2009.
After three years of research, the scientific data on the benefits of the system approach used in organic and ‘low input’ agriculture has expanded considerably. At the same time the project has developed an array of technological innovations that are applicable to a wide range of food production systems and novel approaches for whole food chain management. During the 3rd QLIF Congress at the University of Hohenheim, these results were discussed in nine synthesis papers and in 37 in-depth papers.
Furthermore an outline and status of the QLIF project including a summary of results and progress perspectives for the QLIF subprojects were presented during the 3rd QLIF congress.
- Consumer perceptions and buying attitudes (subproject 1)
- Nutritional quality and safety of organic and low input food and effects on livestock and human health (subproject 2)
- How can different crop strategies improve the quality and safety of food? (subproject 3)
- How can different livestock strategies improve the quality and safety of food? (subproject 4)
- Improving food quality and safety by ‘low input’ food processing methods (subproject 5)
- Improving food quality and safety by HACCP and reducing costs of the organic food chain (subproject 6)
- Assessment of the ecological impact of novel strategies and technologies in organic food systems and outreach of the QLIF project (subproject 7)
Details on the status of the QLIF project as of 2007 are availalbke in a paper by Urs Niggli (academic project coordinator) and Carlo Leifert (project leader) at the Organic Eprintgs archive.
|
