Organic Research Centres Alliance (ORCA)
Organic agriculture has been steadily growing for more than a decade and today like yesterday, the demand for organic products continues to be larger than supply. The new global context of increased climate variability, water scarcity, peak-oil and commodity-price volatility pose unprecedented challenges to agriculture which could be addressed by organic management and a re-localisation of food production and consumption. Organic agriculture offers many synergistic benefits for tackling the bio-physical and socio-economic challenges for reducing hunger, rural poverty and inequality and conserving natural resources cultural diversity. However, a rapid expansion of organic management in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors requires investments in the knowledge base at all levels: from agro-ecology and landscape management to societal organization and market intelligence. Fundamental science and applied research are crucial requirements for the development of organic agriculture, especially in developing countries.
The proposed Organic Research Centres Alliance (ORCA) intends to internationally network and strengthen existing institutions with scientific credentials and empower them to become centers of excellence in transdisciplinary organic agriculture research. The objective is to ensure that environmental, economic, and social benefits accruing from organic research are shared worldwide. The ORCA concept is designed following a research paradigm that heavily draws on traditional knowledge, improves it with scientific investigation and shares it widely. Research centres may be physical laboratories or “institutions without walls”, formed through alliances between producers and scientists, as well as twinning between developing and developed countries’ institutions.
The ORCA concept has been developed jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Italy), Tufts University (USA) and the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (Switzerland). The ORCA concept was put forward for public comments from 17 November to 15 December 2008 through an electronic discussion. Views were collected from scientists and individuals in civil society and private industry all over the world who are engaged in organic agriculture research and development.
The ORCA concept has been finalized in light of the public comments received, with a view to submit the fully-fledged project proposal to potential donors. A database of institutions of relevance to ORCA can be searched under ORCA Database.
This web page will continue disseminating relevant information and sharing all steps and progress to be made during ORCA implementation, which is expected to be incremental.
|
