Lindsay Whistance and Rowan Dumper-Pollard reflect on their recent trip to Taiwan.
Once every three years, IFOAM Organics International hold the Organic World Congress (OWC) where organic farmers, producers, advocates, researchers and policy experts from across the world gather together to share their experience and knowledge. The congress venue rotates across countries with the 21st edition taking place in Chiayi, Taiwan on 2-4th December 2024. This year’s theme, ‘Cultivating Organic Solutions for True Sustainability,’ highlighted innovative and collaborative efforts and commitment among and between organic stakeholders – farmers, producers, researcher, policy-makers and advocates towards sustainable food systems on a global scale. Alongside the Congress, various organisations could host smaller conferences, commonly known as pre-conferences, as well as activities like bio-tours. ORC was very pleased to be invited to attend one of the bio-tours and to present our research at the OWC.
The hosts of the bio-tour that we joined were the state-funded Hualien Organic Agricultural Research Center, (a branch of the Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, or HDARES), dedicated to both researcher and farmer-led trials. These trials include looking at optimal growing practices and integrated pest management (IPM) in the four key growing microclimates around the island. As hosts of the bio-tour, HDARES presented us with two packed days of activity discussing and showcasing organic research and food systems across Taiwan.
First, alongside speakers from HDARES, Thünen-Institute of Organic Farming (Germany), The Rodale Institute (US), Organic Agriculture Centre (Canada), FiBL (Switzerland), and the National Centre for Organic and Natural Farming (India), we presented an introduction to ORC and its current research. We were then given a guided tour of their impressive research centre, its facilities and trials. Some of their work is recognisable to us in the UK, e.g., the growing and processing of alternative protein crops for pigs and poultry, their trials with hops to meet a growing market in craft beers and how to develop useful products from by-products. In one of their research buildings they demonstrated how they had developed equipment to separate and process all parts of the citrus fruit pomelo leading to diverse food and bodycare products, as well as an alcoholic drink.
We then travelled to meet with cooperatives who offer training and advise for young farmers and we visited a farm practising indigenous fish-farming techniques alongside extensive habitat creation and protection of land and wetland. We also met a rice grower, collaborating with HDARES in IPM trials who demonstrated how the adoption from UK and Europe of hedge/edge planting had resulted in the creation of habitat for predators such as ladybirds which were successfully controlling the population of rice stem borers that can otherwise decimate a crop if left unmanaged.
Impressively, Taiwan has managed to create an organic village, Luoshan, (with ambitions for more) and when standing on the platform, waiting for a train to Chiayi City and the congress, the Director of the research centre pointed to the valley and said that all the land we could see to the mountains, was part of the organic village. Quite the achievement to align organic farmers and farming in space as well as time!
Alongside the showcasing of organic research and farmer activities, we were able to actively participate in some of the demonstrations. After seeing where food was grown and prepared for markets, we tried our hand at making some of their traditional foods. This included scallion doughnuts (delicious!), little square cakes filled with preserved fruit filling (it’s quite the skill to make pastry on a table while only using the fingers on your left hand!) and tofu, using the Japanese method. Happily, we could indulge in eating the food we made and, along with the tours, was a really great way to learn about different parts of the food system. All of the people and producers we met spent a lot of time and energy in finding ways to share knowledge and inform the public about how their food is produced. Our well-being was also considered in the activities and when we visited the volcanic pool from where the salt-water was collected for tofu making, we stopped off in a bamboo grove where we were invited to rest and meditate awhile, whilst leaning against a growing bamboo stem. A surprisingly effective way to relax which was only trumped by a later visit to a hotel with hot spring pools to help soak away any tiredness.
Throughout the bio-tour and the congress, food played a big role each day. We were never very far away from the next meal and each was filled with many new experiences of ingredients, tastes and textures. With trips to local restaurants, banquets laid on at both the bio-tour and the congress and trips to the night market in between there was much fun to be had both looking at and trying different dishes. Favourites included monkey-head mushrooms, toffee Asian pears on skewers, anything with red bean paste in and bubble tea, oh and the sweet-tasting cow’s tongue biscuit (named after its shape).
At the Congress itself, hosted by Nanhua University in Chiayi City, once we had recovered from the very formal opening which included a fantastic drumming display from students on the traditional music course at the University we were welcomed into the main hall by rows of uniformed young men and women greeting us in unison with choreographed welcomes in both Taiwanese and English. We were struck by the splendour our hosts bestowed upon us when the day was finished with a banquet and a full programme of traditional and modern singing and dancing (including some IFOAM delegates being recruited as dancers!). They are certainly justified in their celebrations as Taiwan has been on an impressive organic journey in recent years. Organic agriculture in Taiwan is taken seriously as a measure to address the climate crisis, and this was shown by the presence of officials from the Ministry of Agriculture on all three days. Since the passing of the Organic Agriculture Promotion Act in 2019, the amount of organic and ‘eco-friendly’ farmland in Taiwan has more than doubled. Taiwanese organic certification is also growing its credibility worldwide with Japan, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Paraguay all holding bi-lateral equivalence agreements for the trade of organic products, and the UK signing a memorandum of understanding on the trade of organic products with Taiwan in May 2024.
The success and innovation of Taiwanese products, as well as other organic products from around the world, were showcased at the impressive OWC Organic Fair, which ran parallel to the main Congress programme of talks and workshops.
We listened to people embracing and sharing organic knowledge from around the world. It was particularly fascinating to hear health practitioners, educated in both western and eastern approaches to medicine, talk about how they combine both approaches in their practice to deliver ‘whole health’. In a session on livestock welfare in organic systems, when talking about the benefits of trees to livestock it was really enjoyable and rewarding to present this work to a really diverse audience who generated some great discussion following the presentations. A workshop session on how to fully implement the four organic principles of Health, Ecology, Fairness and Care into livestock systems was stimulating and, on the whole, attitudes and approaches were similar between the farmers and researchers present, regardless of origins and species of animal farmed.
One slightly nerve-racking quirk of some of the workshops of the Congress was the use of a ‘fishbowl’ approach – where if you want to contribute, you must take the place of a speaker in the centre of the room to make your point. The approach looks to ensure as many voices as possible are involved in discussions. It was a very valuable exercise as many important topics, such as the relationship between organic and regenerative agriculture, or the future of organic agriculture in a world of increasing precision breeding (a new phrase for GMO), were discussed and debated by representatives from all over the world.
Rowan spoke in the ‘Evolving Organic Standards, Global Challenges and Consumer Perceptions’ workshop on ‘Managing conflict in food systems. How can organic cross economic and ideological divides?’ The talk aimed to provide some practical routes through managing food system conflicts that could inhibit efforts to scale the organic sector.
Lindsay took part in the ‘Organic Livestock: Sustainability and Welfare’ session. Read her abstract ‘The value of trees in promoting animal welfare in organic systems: a review‘ Download Lindsay’s presentation on silvopasture:
On the final day of a packed programme, we were invited to participate in a follow-up session to the bio-tour, entitled ‘International Cooperation and Exchange in Organic Agriculture Research’, where each of the visiting organic organisations were invited to offer feedback on the bio-tour and to suggest areas of research where we might collaborate in the future. Representatives of the Taiwanese Government attended and Bill Wang, an Associate Researcher at HDARES, ended the session by reminding us all that ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together’.
A Message from Karen Mapusua, President of IFOAM – Organics International
“As we close this chapter and look to the future, I want us to leave here with a renewed sense of purpose and solidarity – and energy! The challenges we face are great, but so is our potential to drive transformative change. We are a global community united by a vision of a better, more sustainable world, and that is something truly extraordinary. We are at a critical juncture for change and must deepen our roots while growing our canopy. We do, I believe, as a movement and organisation need to reflect on who we want to be, and what is needed to really put our principles of health, ecology, fairness and care into practice. As its said, you can’t expect different results if you keep doing the same things. As great systems thinker Buckminster Fuller said ‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.’
Thank you, everyone. We were all energised by the OWC this past week – Let’s carry that energy forward as we continue to grow, innovate, and inspire.”
The next host of the OWC in 2027 will be the Phillipines. IFOAM – Organics Europe have their own annual Congress (EOC) and the next one will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark on 18-19 August 2025 : https://www.organicseurope.bio/events/european-organic-congress-2025/. See you there!
