AFOA - Association Forum of Organic Agriculture Mieczysław Górny

AFOA has around 80 members involved in organic food and farming. These are individuals (farmers, processors, researchers, retailers) and companies (certification bodies, processing companies). AFOA is a member of the IFOAM EU Regional Group. AFOA's main objectives are to strengthen the organic farming sector in Poland, to promote organic farming and organic products in society, to conduct educational activities to raise environmental awareness in the Polish public, to identify practical and research problems that need to be solved, and to formulate official positions for policymakers. AFOA is an active organization that holds thematic meetings at least twice a year.

Role in project

AFOA is mainly involved in work packages 2, 5, 6, and 9 of the OH-FINE project. However, AFOA will also contribute to all other work packages and is involved in stage 2: Producer needs and bottom-up approach. It will select different stakeholders - farmers, advisors, researchers, agri-food industry representatives, consumers, and policymakers - to identify their knowledge needs and the practical relevance of the selected topics through an appropriate questionnaire. Next, AFOA will analyze the needs of producers and target the activities accordingly, putting their needs at the heart of the system. In the last year of project, AFOA will collaborate with others to develop policy briefs with recommendations to influence future policy and regulatory actions related to organic farming.