English
Français
The 2025 @Global Forum of Food and Agriculture (GFFA) was held under the topic “Farming a Sustainable Bioeconomy”. The 17th innovation forum took place in Berlin on 16th and 17th January and gave us the opportunity to reconnect with our partners and to make new relationships with experts and institutions in the framework of development in agriculture. GOPA AFC has a broad presence within the projects funded by the @BMEL, together with our partners, we implement more than 10 projects worldwide.
This intense presence led to diverse and meaningful activities within this year's innovation forum. Starting on the 15th of January with a networking meeting with all relevant stakeholders connected to the BMEL Program, the GFFA started. The focus of the venue and the following fishbowl discussion was the evaluation of sustainable transformation examples in the food system. Here, the co-team leader of the German Colombian Training Centre in Agroecology, Dr. Jürgen Kroschel contributed to the topic of the importance of resilience in diverse agricultural production systems.
Important to mention is the contribution of our Agricultural Knowledge and Training Center (AKTC) in Zambia. The project is being implemented for over a decade and encourages e.g. the promotion of private partnerships, where companies like Lemke or Bayer are active in.
The AKTC also contributed to the development of the BMEL's Africa strategy, which was presented at this years Forum. This newly published ‘Concept for our cooperation with African countries and regions’ aims to develop solutions together with its African partners to promote sustainable agriculture, ensure healthy and adequate food for all, and create long-term prospects. The BMEL explicitly refers to best practices that GOPA AFC has been implementing in the AKTC since 2014.
This includes, for example, climate-resilient and agroecological production practices, local expertise on cultivation methods and local species, the dissemination of knowledge in cooperation with Zambian and German research institutes.
More meetings on a higher level were held by one of our managing directors Johannes Buschmeier. On an exhibition side event at the Tajikistan's stand during Green Week, he met with the Vice Minister of Agriculture of Tajikistan, Mrs. Nigina Anvari, and other key stakeholders of the country to explore opportunities for collaboration and innovation in the sustainability of agriculture.
High level encounters were also made at our stand at the Global Forum. By visiting our both, GOPA AFC was able to present our professionalism and impact worldwide and go in exchange with these decision makers. The Congolese minister of agriculture and Food Safety, @Grégoire Mutshail Mutomb, was in exchange with our experts to further evaluate our presence and possible activities in central Africa.
Also from the German ministry side, high level persons visited our stand for a deeper exchange concerning our activities worldwide and especially with BMEL. The Parliamentary State Secretary Claudia Müller was present for an exchange with Mr. Buschmeier. Since years, GOPA AFCs has a direct connection to the ministry due to our involvement in several BMEL funded projects. The deep relation is shaped by several visits of ministers or state secretaries within our projects in e.g. Zambia or Uzbekistan.
But not only meetings and encounters on high levels were held in the frame of the GFFA 2025, also on project level, there were multiple meetings and presentations to strengthen the inter project relations as well as the connection to operating stakeholders in the projects.
The Agricultural Policy dialogue of Kazakhstan had the privilege of organizing and participating in several significant events relevant for the collaboration in the agrifood sector between both countries. They set up a project meeting with Vice Minister Yermek Kenzhekhanuly of Kazakhstan and BMEL, discussing APD’s results and next activities or hosted a round table on "Development of the Agriculture Sector of Kazakhstan”.
Besides that, the BMEL projects of the Latin American countries, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay had a fruitful workshop about future synergies and relevant topics which could be implemented together. Here the focus between the countries will be put on e.g. Agroecology with the inherited topics of sustainable soil systems, the utilization of bio inputs, or the evaluation of political frameworks concerning the inauguration of agroecological principles.
At the end we would like to mention our contribution to the Cluster meetings organized by GFA. Here, projects were sorted according to their content, e.g. to the Right of Food, Agroecology or Organic Agriculture. With a short presentation, project activities were presented to the audience, following a networking discussion with e.g. team leaders and experts working in other programs with the same topics or contents. GOPA AFCs project DIAF and CoA from Marocco and Ukraine were part of the organic cluster to show their impact and activities.