speaking organic

Green Week The international green week started on Friday hence it is a big topic in the food and agriculture related twitter community.  If you have a look at the twitpics with the hashtag #greenweek it is quite obvious that it is not only the fair, which is connected with this term. Many pictures show scenery's or banners from the protests coming with the fair: Tweets über "#greenweek" European Election This May the new European Parliament will be voted. The European Commission spreads a short video an Twitter asking for the readers view on environment and immigration. I think it is a good sign, seeing environment as one of two topics mentioned: Do we need an EU army? What is your view about #environment or #immigration in EU? Your Vote Counts! http://t.co/LpVmlOfPzG #EP2014 #eudeb8 — European Commission (@EU_Commission) 19. Januar 2014 What was your trending topic on twitter last week? Did you or are you planing to visit the Green Week? Did you ...

In the second week of 2014 two topics got my attention in particular. Both have a connection to the food fair "International Green Week" starting this Friday in Berlin. Meat Atlas The Meat Atlas 2014 was published this week, in time for the Green Week. Many statements and illustrations were replicated on Twitter. It is available in German and in English . Due to this important hashtags are    #Fleischatlas  and   #meatatlas . Meat consumption increases, factory farms grow. Our #meatatlas launched today with @boell_stiftung . http://t.co/WklXZvQIAQ — Friends of the Earth (@foeeurope) 9. Januar 2014 "Wir haben es statt" A annual demonstration in Berlin during the Green Week claims good food and good farming for everyone. The majority of the twitter content is in German. A often used Hashtag is  #WirHabenEsSatt . #WirHabenEsSatt ! Sei dabei mit uns gegen #Massentierhaltung , #Gentechnik , #TTIP und für ökolog. #Landwirtschaft . pic.twitter.co...

The IFOAM EU Group created a youtube channel with expert interviews discussing different aspects of the new Common Agricultural Policy after 2013. The videos are part of the Mind the CAP campaign which  " seeks to raise awareness and increase understanding of the Common Agricultural Policy among farmers and citizens from the perspective of the organic movement " (1). Most videos are in English and only a few minutes long. In all other cases you can use the subtitles offered from youtube. I think they are really informative and nicely put together, so I'm quite surprised about the fact most of them count so few views to this point. read more: (1) Mind the CAP campaign:  http://www.ifoam-eu.org/en/mind-cap/mind-cap-campaign

Food Waste The topic Food Waste is frequently discussed on Twitter. Beside the Hashtag #FoodWaste the counterpoint #SaveFood is often used in tweets as well. FAOKnowledge put the area used for the production of food which will be wasted into perspective: #DidYouKnow 1.4bln hectares of land is used annually to produce food that is lost or wasted? http://t.co/JgY2VxEyuG #UNFAO #SaveFood — FAOKnowledge (@FAOKnowledge) 11. Dezember 2013

Following a selection of topics which gained my attention on twitter in particular: Green Primary With the aim to involve european citizens in their politics the European Greens opened the election for the two Green leading candidates for all "green- minded people". Ppl from all 28 EU countries have already participated in the #GreenPrimary . http://t.co/kpuF0Kykm4 Vote now 4 real pan-European democracy! — European Greens (@europeangreens) 6. Dezember 2013 Take part and find out more about it here .

With t he yearbook "The World of Organic Agriculture - Statistics and Emerging Trends" the  Research Institute of Organic Agriculture ( FiBL ) and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements ( IFOAM ) publishes quite a pile of numbers and statistics about " recent developments in global organic agriculture " (1). As the title tells the yearbook claims to discuss a rather comprehensive complex of topics.  I'll give a glimpse into a selection of findings which are most interesting from my point of view.

The Ökobarometer is a representative study carried out on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection  in Germany.  In the assisted telephone survey  1000  german citizens from the age of 14 onwards have been interviewed. Aim is to know more about the consumers attitude toward organic products.  This years study was published in August. I'll give a brief overview about the studies findings.

The Global Soil Week aims to inform about the sustainable management of soils by bringing together stakeholder from all over the world. This years Global Soil Week took place in Berlin from  October  27th to October 31st. My interest is to see if the attention the Global Soil Week created ended with the first of November. Or if soil ist a stable topic of interest. So, as the post-title tells, a look at some twitter statistics it is! For the query I used the Hashtag #soil as well as #GlobalSoilWeek. The Hashtag #GSW is used for the Global Soil Week as well as for some US sports team so I couldn't use this one.

With slightly more than 30 exhibitors the "Grüne Karriere" is a rather small fair. Nevertheless the exhibitors are quite diverse. Located in the Energieforum Berlin since this year, it was well placed, I think. Grüne Karriere Berlin, 2013

Upcoming weekend the fair Grüne Karriere will take place in Berlin. It's a job and education fair for those who are interested in a ecological and ethical career. It is directed to young professionals as well as to people with many years of professional experience. You'll find the list of exhibitor here:  http://www.gruenekarriere.info/?page_id=1403 I'll be there at Saturday an will give a a brief review afterwards. Read more:  http://www.gruenekarriere.info/

One aspect mentioned in the discussion about the possible reactions to the climate change is a proper agricultural practise. Agriculture is not only a important factor to stop the climate change. Farmers also have to adapt the agricultural practise to extreme weather conditions, due to the climate change. In the oppositional positions of a high input agriculture with high yields and earnings and a sustainable one with a lower input and accordingly less yields on the short term, as a reaction to the climate change,  Müller and Niggli (2013) summarise important reasons that a sustainable agriculture is more likely to adapt on the climate change.