Historical Background
Truly enough, in the inter-war period, organic agriculture in Poland was initiated but with the outbreak of World War II it ceased to exist. In that period, there were several farms which implemented organic methods. At the same time, a movement to propagate organic agriculture, led by Count Stainslaw Karlowski, started. A few courses took place and several instructional brochures were issued. In 1938, a Poznán-based Society of Promotion Principles of Life and Farming in Harmony with Nature was established. A periodical, "Biology and Life", of which four numbers were published just before the war, was an organ of the Society. Soon after the outbreak of the war, Count Karlowski was arrested and executed. His real estate was taken over by the Nazis and the organic (biodynamic) farming method abandoned.
As far as scientific life is concerned, between 1928-33, Bronislaw Niklewski published a few valuable papers on humus and composting.
During the post-war period, the development of Polish agriculture was deterred by the destructive state politics. Yet Polish farmers, as the only ones in Eastern Europe, withstood the state strategy of forced collectivisation. Thanks to this fact, an overwhelming 80% of farmland belonged to private owners. Being under difficult circumstances, the farmers thought about protecting the possessed land rather than introducing new methods.
Work on organic agriculture began after 1980, that was in the time of establishing Solidarity Trade Union and political changes in the entire Eastern Europe. In the 1980s, the idea of organic farming was promoted in Poland through lectures, meetings, discussions; among them five seminars on biodynamic agriculture were held by German specialists. After eight years of informal promotion, the Association of Ecological Food Producers, EKOLAND, was officially registered on 1 September 1989. At present, 236 farms with a total acreage of seven thousand hectares are EKOLAND-certified. Furthermore, the Lublin-based Polish Society of Organic Farming which was established in 1993, certified over 100 farms last year. In December 1996, the Association Agro Bio Test, which is a control body dealing with inspection and certification of organic farms, was established.
In other Central European countries, organic farming started to develop at the end of the 1980s with only the exception of Hungary where the Biokultura Association was founded in 1983. The process of certifying of organic farms began in Hungary on 1988, in Yugoslavia and Poland two years later, in 1991 in Latvia, a year after in Estonia, in 1993 in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Romania and in 1994 in Russia and Slovakia. The total number of organic farms in this region was about 1000 and the total acreage amounted to about 60 000 hectares (Soltysiak, 1997).
Completed and Current Research Projects
The first small-scale research projects on organic farming in our part of Europe were initiated in the second half of the 1980s. A lot of attention was paid to the method of biodynamic agriculture and particularly to sowing dates and their influence on development, quality and yields of crops. In the 1990s, this kind of research was abandoned and more interest was taken in the development of the biological method of organic farming.
I present here a review of the research activities in organic farming in countries of Central Europe.
1. BULGARIA
In the early 1990s at the Plovdiv University, an Agroecological Centre was established by Stoitcho Karov. Two graduates of the Organic Farming Department at Wageningen University are his co-workers.
2. CZECH REPUBLIC
J. Moudry in Ceske Budejovice leads research work on organic crop production with the emphasis on the relations between farming and the environment. Comparative studies on organic versus conventional farming systems were made at Brno Agricultural University.
3. HUNGARY
Laszlo Radics at Budapest University is working on non-chemical weed control. Geza Marai at Gödöllö University is working on animal nutrition in an organic agriculture system. Two Ph.D thesis were made on composting at the same University.
4. LITHUANIA
At the Kaunas Academy research is being carried out on the influence of agriculture on water quality (Vida Rutkoviene organized a conference on the subject in 1993). P. Lazauskas was working for several years on non-chemical weed control at the same University (P. Lazauskas is retired).
5. POLAND
M. Górny initiated a comparative study on organic versus conventional farming systems at Warsaw Agricultural University.
H. Runowski at the same University is running a project on economics of organic production.
J. Kus at Pulawy Institute of Soil Sciences and Fertilization is running comparative studies on organic versus conventional farming and a project on choice of crop varieties for organic systems.
J. Szymona made a project on crop nutrition at Lublin Agricultural University.
U. Soltysiak at Warsaw Agricultural University is working on legislation aspects of organic agriculture.
J. Tyburski and T. Sadowski at Olsztyn Agricultural University are working on weed communities on organic farms.
6. ROMANIA
Ion Toncea made his master degree in Wageningen and now he is in charge of the Research Institute of Cereals and Industrial Crops.
7. SLOVAKIA
In Piestany and Nitra, research work is being carried out on crop production with consideration of methods of organic and integrated farming.
8. UKRAINE
A few scientists attended an IFOAM conference held in Copenhagen last year which is proof of interest shown by the Ukrainians in organic farming.
Topics for Future Research
In our opinion, supported by our Hungarian colleagues, research in organic farming should be concentrated on:
estimation of internalisation of environmental costs by organic farmers (its aim is determining the real cost of food production);
the role of organic farming for the biodiversity conservation;
farm-experiments versus plot-experiments methodology;
research on pesticide residues in food (not only active ingredients but also their by-products);
work on modern breeding methods without genetic engineering;
work on choice of appropriate varieties of crops and breeds of animals;
animal husbandry;
animal nutrition;
marketing strategies for organic products; and
policy options.
List of scientists working on organic farming research:
LIST OF SCIENTISTS WORKING ON ORGANIC FARMING RESEARCH
BELARUS
Georgi Dubikovski
Agricultural Institute
Tereshkova str. 28
230600 Grodno
Tel.: 375 15 472 085
Fax.: 375 15 470 168
BULGARIA
Stoitcho Karov
Faculty of Plant Protection and
Agroecology
Department of Plant Pathology
Mendeleev str. 12
BG - 4000 Plovdiv
Tel.: 359 32 265 909
Fax.: 359 32 265 909
Penka G. Kostadinova
Stoyanka Koutzarova
Agricultural University of Plovdiv
Department of Agroecology
Mendeleev str. 12
BG - 4000 Plovdiv
Tel.: 359 32 265 909
Fax.: 359 32 265 909
Plamen Paraskevov
Vladislav Popov
Agricultural University Plovdiv
Mendeleev str. 12
BG - 4000 Plovdiv
Tel.: 359 32 265 909
Fax.: 359 32 265 909
CROATIA
Miodrag Hitrec
Ekonomski Fakultet
Katedra za marketing
Kenoedijev trg 6
HR - 41000 Zagreb
CZECH REPUBLIC
Jan Moudrý
Dept. of Plant Produciton
Studentska 13
CZ - 37005 Ceske Budéjovice
Tel.: 420 38 703 390
Fax.: 420 30 40 301
Borivoj Sarapatka
Palcký University Olomouc
Faculty of Science
Department of Ecology tr. Svobody 26
CZ - Olomouc
Tel.; 421 69 5222 451
Fax.: 421 68 5225 737
ESTONIA
Ingo Pöder
Estonian Agricultural University
Institute of Soil Management
Viljandi, Eerika
EE - 2400 Tartu
Tel.: 372 7 425 292
HUNGARY
Géza Márai
Agricultural University
H-2100 Gödöllö
Tel.: 36 28 430 818
Fax.: 36 28 310 804
László Radics
University of Horticulture and Food Industry
Department of Agricultural Systems
Ecological Farming Division
H - 1518 Budapest, Pf. 53
Fax.: 36 1 166 4355
Email: mezg@hoya.kee.hu
LITHUANIA
Vida Rutkoviené
Lithuanian Academy of Agriculture
LT - 4324 Kaunas-Akademija
Tel.: 370 7 296 844
Fax.: 370 7 296 531
MOLDOVA
Boris P. Boinchan
Research Institute of Field Crops
Calea Esilor Str. 28
279200 Beltsy
Tel.: 373 42 3130 212
Fax.: 373 42 3130 221
Ion Dediu
National Institute of Ecology
58 Dacia b.d.
277061 Chisinau
Tel.: 373 2 539 265
Fax.: 373 2 233 806
POLAND
Jan Kus
Research Institute of Crops and Soil Science
ul. Czartoryskich 8
PL - 24100 Pulawy
Tel.: 48 81 863 421
Fax.: 48 81 864 960
Henryk Runowski
Warsaw Agricultural University, SGGW
ul. Nowoursynowska 166
PL - 02787 Warsaw
Tel.: 48 22 439 004 ext. 1650
Ursula Soltysiak
Warsaw Agricultural University, SGGW
ul. Nowoursynowska 166
PL - 02787 Warsaw
Tel.: 48 22 437 904
Fax.: 48 22 471 562
Józef Tyburski
Agricultural University of Olsztyn
Plac Lódzki 3, pok. 234
PL - 10718 Olsztyn - Kortowo
Tel.: 48 89 5233 789
Fax.: 48 89 5233 789
ROMANIA
Ion Toncea
Research Institute for Cereals and Industrial Crops
N. Titulescu - 1
RO - 8264 Fundulea
Jud. Calarasi
Tel.: 40 1 615 0805/4040
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Zoya Bannova
182 100 Veliky Luki
Pskov Region
Lenin str. 51/36, app.30
Tel.: 7 811 533 7014
Fax.: 7 811 537 1772
SLOVAKIA
Jaroslav Drobný
Research Institute of Plant Production, VURV
Bratislavská 122
SK - 92168 Piestany
Tel.: 42 838 223 11
Fax.: 42 838 263 06
Pavol Stehlo
Research Institute of Agriculture and Food Economics
Cesta pod Zlatym brehom
P.O. Box 56A
SK - 94901 Nitra
Tel.: 42 87 512 180
Fax.: 42 87 512 180
Magdalena Bartosova
Agricultural University of Nitra
Department of Agricultural Systems
Tr. A. Hlinku 2
SK - 94976 Nitra
Tel.: 42 87 412 835
Fax.: 42 87 411 560
Jana Bojdova
Karol Kavác
Research Institute of Plant Production
Bratislavská Cesta 122
SK - 92168 Piestany
Tel.: 42 838 722 311
Fax.: 42 838 726 306
UKRAINE
Galina Loutinskaja
General and Soil Microbiology Department and Association "Tripliliia"
252143 Kiev
Zabolotny str. 15
Tel.: 380 44 266 3479
Vladimir Kisel
Institute for Soil Science and Agro-chemistry Research
Chajbovskij str. 4
310024 Charkov
Tel.: 380 572 401 154
Ivontchik Petro
National Agricultural University
Lomonosova str. 31
Corp 1, appt. 44
252127 Kiev
Tel.: 380 44 263 0490
Nicola Shicula
National Agricultural University
Soil Science Department
252041 Kiev
Geroev oborony str. 15
Tel.: 380 44 267 8631
YUGOSLAVIA
Tereza Horvat Skenderovic
Mirjolub Kis
Open University Subotica/TERRA’S
Trg Cara Jovana Nenada 15
24000 Subotica
Tel.: 381 24 264 04
Fax.: 381 24 371 16
