Field workshop in Poland on variety testing and the importance of seed quality in organic farming

LIVESEED’s Polish partner IUNG-PIB held a field workshop on the 30th of June 2021 to promote LIVESEED results on variety testing and to raise awareness of the importance of seed quality in organic farming. During the workshop, farmers, researchers, national authorities, farm advisors and seed producers visited the long-term organic experiment in Osiny, in which different varieties of spring and winter cereals and grain legumes are tested. The event contributed significantly to the discussions on the importance of maintaining the National Organic Variety Testing Program (EDO) which is coordinated by IUNG-PIB. The EDO is aiming to assess the suitability of different crop varieties for cultivation in organic farming.

The group also visited an organic farm specialized in field vegetable production. At the beginning of the visit to the organic farm, its owner – Mr Piotr Osik gave a short presentation and showed a film about his farm, then Mr Mariusz Moczulski from Bejo Company discussed the status of the organic vegetable seed market in Poland. In the end, the audience got acquainted with the most important activities and results of the LIVSEED project as a result of the presentation delivered by Dr Jarosław Stalenga. The last point was the visit to the organic vegetable fields on the farm. The event was an opportunity to discuss the expectations and possibilities of variety testing in organic arable and field vegetable farming. Presenting the experience of the organic farm specialized in field vegetable production (the farm uses organic seeds of the best quality and for many years has been conducted the demonstration parcels with different species and varieties of vegetables) proved important to put in perspectives the continuation of the demonstration parcels with different vegetables in the Piotr Osik’s organic farm, starting 2022.

Images © by IUGN-PIB. Licence: “Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License” (the author must be credited; commercial use not allowed).