Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm, Hamstead Marshall, UK

On my first visits in Europe I went to England. My family went with me and we spent a long weekend in London and had a great time visiting the usual tourist attractions such as The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Madam Tousseau, Buckingham Palace etc. On November 2^nd I went to the Organic Research Centre (ORC) near Newbury (West-Central UK). The drive through the countryside was beautiful but driving on the left side on the narrow rural roads was an ... adventure. Green, animal-grazed pastures lined by miles and miles of hedgerows dominate the landscape in this part of the UK.

At ORC I visited with Nic Lampkin and his colleagues. Many years ago Nic wrote the only comprehensive text book in organic farming. ORC has five main areas of interest: research – training/demonstrations – consultancy/advice – schools/ colleges – community initiatives. As the center name implies, the focus is on research. Institutional and staff changes during the last 18 months further solidified this emphasis. I was somewhat disappointed that the grower training, school and community initiatives did not receive more attention. However, the ORC researchers I met gave me a good overview of the highlights in European organic farming research. In England in particular, there is a lot of research emphasis on integrated crops/animal enterprises since most organic farms here raise both field crops and livestock.

ORC used to have several advisors (similar to US extension) on staff who helped growers answer specifically organic Ag questions. However, this service is now greatly diminished when the advisors became self employed (or had to change jobs) after the government almost banned any outside farm visits for fear of spreading Foot & Mouth and BSE (Mad Cow) diseases. Since then, ORC still has a government contract to help growers transition from conventional to organic but there is a good chance that this transition program is getting scrapped in the next weeks as the government is trying to get the soaring national debt under control.

ORC is part of a transatlantic study partnership with the College of the Atlantic (see September blog reports) and the University of Kassel, Germany (where I will visit in a few weeks).It is not clear if this partnership will continue. ORC researchers gave me many contacts across Europe, especially in Germany (two of the researchers at the center were Germans). I had not kept up with the developments there in the last 15 years, thus it was great to find out which of the programs are worthwhile for me to visit in the next months.

ORC staff is teaching some modules in eco-ag distance education programs in Scotland and Spain. My understanding is that students in those programs meet with instructors during one weekend per month only, otherwise the teaching is online. Individual modules are taught by various experts in their respective fields. I am planning to contact some of these distance education course leaders to see what we can learn from them for our teaching at LBCC.

After my conversations with the Centre staff I had to clear my head a bit and went on the 2 mile farm education trail. They had some nice displays about the ecology of the farm and region as well as the day to day work on a livestock farm.

Many thanks to Nic Lampkin, Susanne Paddel and Thomas Doering for their time and insights.