The Third International Scientific Conference of ISOFAR was held from 28 September to 1 October 2011 in the frame of the 17th IFOAM Organic World Congress (OWC) in Gyeonggi Paldang, Republic of Korea. The practical implementation of the OWC was managed by the Korean Organizing Committee, while ISOFAR was responsible for the scientific part of the conference, the so-called ̳research track‘.
Interest is deepening in agricultural practices that promote environmentally sound agriculture, well-grounded on scientific knowledge and facts. Scientists working on the organic research track are aware that the cradle of their daily work is based on the numerous practical approaches and the experiences gained under diverse site conditions and given obstacles to clear. Trial and error are part of the daily life of researchers as well as of practitioners. Thus, the value of this scientific conference can be measured in the stimulus it provides to the individual researcher and farmer, especially the young ones, knowing that future progress will depend on them. Furthermore, the value of this conference lies in the opportunity offered to us to discuss possible strategies how to overcome future restrictions Organic Agriculture will be confronted with under the individual site conditions in different regions.
It's a pleasure for me to express my gratitude to those who made this conference possible and to those preparing the proceedings. I want to thank our benefactors for their efforts and our institutional hosts in Korea for providing the conference venue and for supporting all the conference activities. On behalf of the participants of the Third Scientific Conference of ISOFAR, I gratefully recognize the diversity of contributions which reflect the broad spectrum of Organic Agriculture worldwide.
I'm especially indebted to the editors of the proceedings for their diligent and tireless efforts in preparing and polishing the submitted manuscripts. These proceedings can be regarded as an anticipatory window opened to a promising future to come. In general, editors share a common experience: after all their hard work and the given functional relationship between the quality of the submitted papers and editors‘ general well-being, they will not deal with a legacy of ̳again another international conference proceedings booklet – grey literature, nothing else‘, but conference proceedings that are cherished as not less than a milestone for the further evolution of Organic Agriculture based on science. This aim could further be fulfilled by publishing of many of the four page contributions reviewed for the proceedings as extended versions in ISOFAR‘s new scientific journal ̳Organic Agriculture‘ or at least by submitting them to other international highly ranked journals.
May these proceedings that comprehensively represent the current state of the art in Organic Agriculture Research find a good reception among its readers and encourage further research activities that contribute to a more complete understanding of what is required for a successful use of unique approaches and techniques in Organic Agriculture in order to expand organic production worldwide.
Ulrich Köpke President ISOFAR
Here you can download the proceedings: