𝗢𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗳𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝗨𝗸𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗲: 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝟭𝟭𝟱 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘂𝗺-𝘀𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀

A campaign to help Ukrainian organic farms finance their organic farming certificate this year was recently successfully completed. The support was specifically aimed at small and medium-sized organic farms in Ukraine that only sell their products in Ukraine. More than 115 organic farms across Ukraine have received funding of up to 1,000 euros in recent weeks. The funding was provided by the “German-Ukrainian Cooperation in Organic Agriculture” project, implemented by AFC and IAK. The project is funded by the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The total amount of the funding was 83.000 Euro.
 
“We are very pleased that we were able to support so many companies in this difficult situation. The selected operators got the necessary resources to receive their certificate in accordance with the requirements of organic farming this year,” said Dr. Stefan Dreesmann, head of the German-Ukrainian project. “

Despite the war, COA was able to continue its work successfully at all levels. Against the backdrop of the war, which has now lasted more than one and a half years, the great psychological stress associated with it and the enormous destruction, it is absolutely extraordinary that all project modules could continue to be worked on and very successfully implemented and further developed in this reporting period. This was and is only possible because all staff and project partners continue to face great hardship, because they are fighting Russia's frontal attack on their culture and their system, and because the people firmly believe in their country.

Other COA aid actions during the last months were

- the preparation of a call for tenders for financial support for farms wishing to be certified under the new Ukrainian law on organic farming (but which also no longer have the financial resources to do so

- participation in the BMEL/FAO programme to provide 25 large generators (25 kw) for large organic farms in Ukraine particularly affected by the war; 11 of the generators could already be delivered by the end of August 2023.

Moreover, a milestone was reached with the certification of the first farms according to the Ukrainian law on organic farming. The key element here was the accreditation of the first organic inspection body under Ukrainian legislation in the second quarter of 2023. The accreditation had previously been actively supported by COA. Another key element was COA's proposal for the content of the Ukrainian law on organic farming, which was submitted to the MAPF in the summer of 2021 and subsequently enshrined in law by the Ukrainian government at the end of 2021. By using this legal possibility, the first farms could be quickly certified in August 2023, as their previous management according to the EU regulation on organic farming was counted as a conversion period. If this COA proposal to credit the conversion period had not been taken up by the MAPF, it would not have been possible to certify farms under the Ukrainian organic farming law for a long time (as they would have had to go through a two-year conversion period again).

Further work is still pending until the full implementation of the Ukrainian law. These include the accreditation of further organic inspection bodies, the creation of missing checklists, the programming of a missing important database, and the intensive training of consumer protection agency staff in the individual Ukrainian oblasts on organic farming.

The project has most recently been extended from 01.09.2023 to 31.08.2025 as recommended by the positive project progress review.