Category Archives: Events

Stakeholders at the national level agree on concrete actions to stimulate the availability and use of organic seed in Greece and Bulgaria

On 2 and 4 October, LIVESEED national workshops took place in Bulgaria and Greece. The workshops focused on the regulation and policy framework regarding production, use and transparency on the availability of organic seed. The LIVESEED partners, including Bionext, the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL Germany) and IFOAM EU organised the workshop in Sofia (Bulgaria) and Athens (Greece), together with national partners Bioselena and Aegilops. Competent authorities involved in seed issues, farmers, researchers, certifiers, breeders and relevant stakeholders from the organic seed sector and value chain discussed how to improve: The national organic seed databases, The production & use

AEGILOPS’ open field day on modern trends in organic farming and breeding

AEGILOPS –  The Greek Network for Biodiversity and Ecology in Agriculture, partner of the LIVESEED project, organised an open field day on 9 June 2019 to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of its activities. The event, held at LOTUS – Organic Research Farm in the village of Ano Lehonia, near Volos, was dedicated to “Modern trends in organic farming and breeding”. Experimental fields were shown to collaborating professional organic growers and agronomists and included landraces, organic varieties, heterogeneous material and intercropping systems mainly of cereals (wheat, barley) and legumes (chickpeas, lentils) but also of vegetables (tomato, potato, beans) and fruit trees

LIVESEED at the 2nd European Agroecology Forum

The 2nd European Agroecology Forum was held in Iraklion, Greece, on 26-28 September 2019 and LIVESEED took the chance to be there and showcase its activities. Besides the display of a poster on the apple task “Perspectives on European apple breeding and propagation under the frame of  LIVESEED project”, a workshop on “Genetic Biodiversity in the Mediterranean area” was also organized. During the workshop Dr. Christina Vakali presented activities of AEGILOPS – Greek Network for Biodiversity and Ecology in Agriculture, a partner of LIVESEED working in organic breeding, participatory conservation and seed production. The outputs of the workshop were the

A unique opportunity provided by the LIVESEED project: Cross-visit in Italy

20.06.2019 Cereal breeders from several EU Member States where organic seed production and use is relatively underdeveloped were given a rare opportunity to learn from Italian experiences and initiatives. Rete Semirurali, one of the Italian partners of the LIVESEED project organised a colourful program. Participants of the cross-visit checked out the Italian Ministry of Agriculture’s Research Agency’s comparative field trials. These trials cover all Italian and German registered bread wheat CCP for evaluation by the expert group of the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety of the European Commission (DG SANTE). This evaluation is part of the implementation of

National Workshop in Hungary on Organic Seed Production and Use Brings Stakeholders Together

by Judit Fehér (ÖMKi) on the National Workshop in Hungary, 12th March 2019: Organic seed is the basis for organic farming. In spite of this fact, the organic seed supply of organic farmers is quite problematic in the whole EU and also in Hungary both regarding quantity and variety assortment. Currently, Hungary – being an internationally acknowledged leading seed producer country – sells organic seeds primarily to European export markets at an amount exceeding several times the needs of the Hungarian farmers. There is a huge potential in the sector both regarding the development of the Hungarian market and increasing

LIVESEED Events at BioFach 2019

BioFach Organic Fair, Nurenberg, Germany, 13-16 February, 2019 In 2019, the LIVESEED project will have a stand at the “Organic right from the start” exhibition and conference space. This exhibition goes along with a colourful program on organic breeding. For a full overview of the exhibition calendar, please visit the following BioFach page: https://www.biofach.de/en/events/2/organic-right-from-the-start/691458 Workshop on organic plant breeding in a system–based approach – Tuesday, 12th February, 13.00-17.30, Room Athens, NCC Mitte, 1st Floor As part of LIVESEED, IFOAM EU, the Louise Bolk Institute (Netherlands), and FIBL Switzerland are co-organising a workshop to discuss what concrete engagements stakeholder groups across

Vitalis Open days 2018

The organic seed producer, and LIVESEED partner, Vitalis presents his demofields with the complete field programme, standard and new varieties of: lettuce, endive, cauliflower, leek, fennel, pumpkin, radish and more. You are invited to visit the demofields. They are open from Tuesday 25th until Friday 28th of September. Please make an appointment beforehand. More information is available on their homepage

International Exhibition for Ecological Agriculture in Bacau (RO), 20 – 23 September 2018

It is a great pleasure to invite you to International Exhibition for Ecological Agriculture ECO-INT 2018 NATURAL TASTE, 2nd Edition. The fair will take place on 20 – 23 September 2018 in Bacau, Romania The show includes conferences as well as workshops, discussions, gastronomical contest with ecological food. Topics to be discussed are “Organic Agriculture – National and International Realities and Opportunities” and ”How to Become a Farmer in Organic Farming”. The vision for the Natural Taste event is to become a tradition and emblem of an exhibition exclusively dedicated to organic farming, organized in Romania in partnership with the

LUPIN field visit with FiBL in Fribourg-Vaud (CH), 5 July 2018

The organic research institute FiBL organises organic field visits to lupin trials. On 5 July 2018 5 different locations will be visited to evaluated the performance of the different cultivars and conditions. Within LIVESEED one specific task is dedicated to breeding white lupin for better adaptation to organic farming. For more information (in French) click the picture.

Organic horticultural day at CREA Monsampolo, (Italy) 5 July 2018

On 5 July 2018 researchers meet stakeholders for the innovation of organic horticulture in Italy. Open day at CREA-OF Monsampolo (Italy), where participatory breeding is underway on a MAGIC population of tomatoes developed for organic condition in cooperation with seed company ISI Sementi. CREA Monsampolo is a LIVESEED partner engaging with participatory organic tomato breeding, in cooperation with ISI sementi. For more info read the program or contact gabriele.campanelli [at] crea.gov.it. (click on the picture for more information in Italian)