Plenary sessions of the Organic World Congress (OWC) 2021 will be complemented by six individual conference forums taking place from 8-10 September 2021, each with its own objectives and criteria:
The application deadline for contributions was October 21, 2019. More than 600 speakers were selected from an incredible 800+ applications. Thanks to you, the OWC2021 programme is as rich and engaging as the movement it reflects!
Following the OWC postponement announcement in May 2020, nearly all speakers have maintained their contribution for the 2021 Congress. We are thus unable to take on additional speakers and will not reopen a broad call at this time.
Participants wishing to contribute are invited to attend the forums’ interactive sessions, especially workshops within the Leadership and Stakeholder Forums. Speakers wishing to get in touch should send an email to papers2021@owc.bio.
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Conference languages:
The conference language is English. Simultaneous translation in French will be made available for specific sessions during the congress, in particular for plenary sessions and for the Farmers' Forum.
The Leadership Forum brings together thinkers, practitioners, and policymakers to discuss new ideas and concepts that will help propel agriculture and organic to the next level of sustainability.
Under the guidance of IFOAM – Organics International board members, stakeholders from various professions and political backgrounds will openly debate the sector’s latest insights, controversies, and developments. Audience members will be invited to participate in the dialogue, allowing them to articulate new sector arguments and rationales.
The Leadership Forum will be arranged as a ‘Fish Bowl’, which enables audience members to join the discussion with session panelists. Seven chairs will be placed in a circle at the center of the room. Session panelists will occupy five of these seats while two seats will remain empty. At the start of the forum, a moderator will introduce each session’s panelist and their speaking topic. Panelists will then give a five- to seven-minute introductory statement. Following their remarks, the moderator will invite an audience member to sit with the panelists at one of the empty chairs to provide their own statement. Once finished, the audience member will return to their seat, thereby enabling others a chance to speak. The ‘Fish Bowl’ methodology ensures that everyone with relevant content is heard and allows for a joint and effective synthesis of the information needed to move us closer to the organic vision.
IFOAM – Organics International has selected the following session themes for the leadership forum. These themes are relevant for local and global organic progress, and were carefully crafted to ensure forum participants will have a wide range of topics for discussion
Session | Theme and Description |
---|---|
1 | Policies as levers and best practices in advocacy: Messages and targets |
2 | Intergenerational organics: Learning from experience and bringing in young energy |
3 | Raising the bar for organics: Moving towards increased sustainability impact |
4 | True Cost Accounting and its use in organic agriculture: Reality check on the magic bullet |
5 | Why aren’t more farmers converting to organic? How to (p)reach (to) the not-yet-convinced? |
6 | Organics for development: How to mainstream organic within the international donor discourse? |
7 | Strategic partnerships: Teaming up with unusual suspects |
8 | Reaching and empowering consumers in their role as citizens: Which intermediaries to target and with what messages? |
9 | Organic leadership: What does being an agent of change imply? |
Submission Guidelines
Please read the submission guidelines before proceeding to the online submission platform.
Applying automatically implies your commitment to participate in person at the OWC 2021. There is no budget for sponsorship of expenses of panelists.
A unique opportunity for farmers from five continents to gather during three days and exchange on what it means to be an organic farmer.
The Organic World Congress offers farmers from five continents the unique opportunity to gather for three days and discuss what it means to be an organic farmer, learn how other organic farmers work (e.g., innovation used on their farms), and explore what challenges organic farmers currently face or will face in the future.
In this respect, the Farmers’ Forum aims to create a space for exchange between farmers and farming advisors to promote positive experiences, best practices, and success stories in organic farming.
The Farmers’ and Advisors’ Forum will yield the floor to farmers from across the globe. Organic farmers are hereby invited to present their success stories, positive experiences, and best practices to an audience of their peers. This forum is also open to organic farming advisors, who are invited to share their knowledge on how advisory services can effect change in the agricultural model.
The Farmers and Advisors’ Forum consists of more than 20 thematic sessions, each focusing on a relevant hot topic for organic farmers.
Each thematic session lasts 90 minutes and consists of:We aim to organise simultaneous translation in English and French for all presentations. Farmers may hold their presentation in one of these languages or in their native language if the farmer has a translator on hand who is able to simultaneously translate into English or Spanish.
Forum contributions should fall into one of the following categories:
1(International Union for Conservation of Nature) IUCN World Congress 2020, Marseille (FR) 11-19 June 2020
Submission Guidelines
Please read the submission guidelines before proceeding to the online submission platform.
Please note that for the Farmers Forum priority will be given to farmers over farming advisors.
Language:
Contributions must be submitted in English, French or Spanish.
Application Process:
All presentations must be submitted via this online platform following the provided format.
From its roots, organic inspires science, and vice versa.
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.
More than 280 papers were selected from 320+ submissions. This Forum invites researchers to share their work in the following five themes, with a special focus on interdisciplinary research:
The development of healthy organic systems needs to be addressed with ecologically sound approaches and at various scales (plot/herd, farm, and landscape). Health management, in a broad sense, can be designed at each of these scales with specific methods, but also by taking advantage of ecosystem services. Managing health also means growing systems autonomy and resilience to increase constraints and uncertainties (climate change, resource scarcity, emerging diseases, market volatility).
Related topics:
One of the key objectives of organic agriculture is to produce food with high nutritional quality in sufficient quantities without compromising biotic and abiotic resources. The expectation of higher quality is a core motive for consumers in purchasing organic products. This quality, however, is dependent on appropriate management and can be compromised if best practices are not adopted.
Related topics:
The transition to more sustainable food and farming systems needs to be implemented by a broad and diverse range of people. It concerns stakeholders engaged in an ongoing evolutionary process of transforming land, agroecosystems, territories, and food systems based on “Sustainable Development Goals” across different scales.
Consumers also have an important role to play, as they have the power to support transitions by their food choices and diets. Citizens can be co-designers of new agroecological food and farming systems.
Related topics:
Organic farming favours and needs innovation to push forward its goals while preserving its principles and identity. Innovations are not only technical or biological but also socio-economical. This triangle of innovation allowed the organic sector to find specific, original, and, until now, successful pathways from food production to consumption. Nevertheless, the future global challenges are severe. “Thinking outside of the box” of today’s regulations, practices and markets is necessary to develop circular and stable organic food systems and to achieve the goals of organic farming: enough, high-quality and affordable food for everyone while maximizing environmental services and equitable social conditions throughout the value chains (cf. Organic 3.0). At the same time, with regard to the organic principles, the impact of new technology and innovation also needs to be assessed.
Related topics:
The organic sector relies on values and principles to guide its evolution and growth. Therefore, relevant regulations and processes are needed as socio-economic frameworks. Public and private policies influence these two pillars, principles, and regulations. They also influence the development of the organic sector through potential support and facilitation as well as through the organization and agreements on trade. These policies, along with the economic choices made by private companies, can represent hindrances or foster opportunities for the sector’s development.
Related topics:
Submission Guidelines
Please read the submission guidelines before proceeding to the online submission platform.
Deadline:
You can submit your paper until 21 October 2019, 23:59 CET. All presentations must be submitted via the online platform.
Format:
You can apply for an oral presentation or for a poster presentation.
Language:
Papers must be submitted in English.
The global demand of organic food and non-food products has grown continuously these past years. Despite substantial variations between countries, organic agriculture has never been so important. IFOAM members can welcome this hopeful trend as long as that holds true to IFOAM principles (health, ecology, fairness and care) and respects these principles in a holistic approach. This forum will give supply and value chain actors, from producers to consumers, the opportunity to share inspiring and transformational experiences as well as innovative initiatives to further develop organic food and non-food supply chains.
The forum seeks to put forward tools, actions, interactions, innovations, models, and policies that can answer the following issues:
Participants
This forum mainly targets: food and non-food processors, retailers, traders, consumers (citizens), certification bodies/participatory guarantee systems, other regulatory agents, policy makers (including local institutions and territories), NGOs, cooks, chefs, restaurants, public and private caterers.
Presentation Format
Each selected speaker will give an 8- to 10-minute presentation, which should not exceed 10 slides (excluding pictures). Presentations will be grouped as 2-3 per session, followed by an exchange with the audience. Forum slideshows will be made available online following the congress.
Contributions will cover, but not be limited to:
Contributions will cover, but not be limited to:
This forum will place particular value on contributions that highlight replicable and scalable model alternatives to a path of “conventionalisation” for the organic model and respect the principle of fairness.
Contributions will cover, but not be limited to:
How do we build sustainable supply chains to meet the increasing demand for organic products? How do we develop markets and increase access for all consumers?
Contributions will cover, but not be limited to:
Contributions will cover, but not be limited to:
Contributions will cover, but not be limited to:
Submission Guidelines
Please read the submission guidelines before proceeding to the online submission platform.
Deadline:
All contributions must be submitted via the online platform by October 21, 2019.
From its roots, organic inspires all dimensions of life, beginning with the cultural, philosophical, and spiritual aspects that motivated us to respect the planet and its living beings.
The Culture, Education, Training and Philosophy Forum will use dialogue to build and convey a common understanding of the fundamentals of the organic sector. We invite all citizens of goodwill to share any contributions framing the philosophical and spiritual foundations of organic movements. These contributions and your participation in our forum will help us deliver an inspirational message of sustainable growth to organic and likeminded stakeholders at OWC2021.
Anchored in these organic roots, we also invite trainers and educators to share their experience disseminating the message of sustainable, organic farming as well as their work in empowering farmers and citizens to find organic solutions for the world’s environmental and social challenges.
The forum will feature three parallel sessions covering the following themes:
Around the world, organic movements are united by their common will to respect life. When life is threatened, how do we express and transmit a message that 1) invites people to recognize the nature of life in a way that aligns with the initial and complementary messages of organic pioneers; and 2) touches all citizens immersed in materialistic cultures.
The historical evolution of life sciences has modified our cultural environment. Our farming practices and relationships with living beings have been heavily influenced by the evolution of scientific paradigms, reducing life expression to its materiality. For the future, how can organic movements help connect citizens to living beings and life? Moreover, how can organic movements harness their intuition regarding the sacredness of life to help people stay connected to it (life)?
Submission Guidelines
Please read the submission guidelines before proceeding to the online submission platform.
Deadline:
All contributions must be submitted via the online platform by October 21, 2019.
This forum aims to promote exchange between all the stakeholders dedicated to organic development and innovation.
The forum will convene with these stakeholders, taking the full diversity of actors into consideration, for exchange and to contribute to increasing the understanding of the various actors and perspectives present within organic food systems.
This forum seeks to:
Forum sessions will last between 45 and 90 minutes and include 12 to 50 participants.
To facilitate stakeholder engagement, sessions will implement creative and inclusive methods for interaction and exchange. Methods will facilitate interaction as well as inclusivity by promoting access to all types of actors. Stories highlighting successes as well as challenges and difficulties will be presented.
Contributions will cover, but not be limited to: organic plant breeding impacts to the value chain and cultivated biodiversity, participatory approaches to define research, development and innovation challenges, amplifying organic experiences, forms of interconnections and respective responsibilities among organic value chains and food systems, contributions of organic values and dynamics to the multiple dimensions of the “health nexus”, confronting views on the position of animals in organic systems.
Submission Guidelines
Please read the submission guidelines before proceeding to the online submission platform.
Deadline:
All contributions must be submitted via the online platform by October 21, 2019.
Pre-conferences are:
Please note that:
For selected Pre-Conferences:
The deadline for pre-conference applications is now over