BOOK OF ABSTRACTS: 1st EU/North-African Conference on Organic Agriculture (EU-NACOA) “Bridging the Gap, Empowering Organic Africa”

Ecological and Organic farming systems and food production are pertinent solutions reducing hunger, climate change mitigation and adaptation, increased biodiversity and its functional role in environmental friendly production. It intends to ensure fair conditions for all stakeholders of the food chain along with responsible consumption. FAO recently declared that organic farming can enhance food security, rural development, sustainable livelihoods and environmental integrity by building capacities of stakeholders in organic production, processing, certification and marketing worldwide. The revised EU regulation to be implemented in 2021 will affect the import of organic products from third parties, and there is a need to understand how and develop efficient ways for its success. However, it still a small sector, African Ecological Organic Agriculture (EOA) is gaining success through the Ecological and OA Initiative (EOA-I) as confirmed during the last African Organic Conference held in Sally-Dakar (Senegal) in November 2018. African organic stakeholders and decision makers along with scientists were unanimous that African governments, continental and regional institutions, development partners, donors and private sector investors, should provide more support to develop OA in Africa. The conference intends to boost the cooperation between organic stakeholders in Africa with many countries at multilateral level. Organic expertise will be strengthened for the benefit of all African countries. Objectives of the conference • Merge a critical mass of scientific capacity and skills from Europe and Africa, to deliver sustainable solutions by working at practical and theoretical level; • Bring together high profiled scientists from both continents to discuss issues about organic inputs, innovation, organic research funding, ethics and address recommendations to relevant certification and regulation bodies; • Address and confront African potentials to expand traditional organic agriculture in terms of genetic, agro-climatic and sociocultural diversity; • Strengthen the "Organic Alternatives for Africa" initiative and to facilitate the integration of OA into strategic policies and the agricultural development program • Discuss how OA in Africa can be further developed as a sustainable and reliable model to ensure food safety for all, in the framework of the AAA Initiative following the COP22 recommendations (Marrakesh, Morocco 2016) • Discuss the main question raised from the conference title: How can research contribute to bridge the current gap between Africa and Europe, with respect to organic agriculture?