On March 4-5, 2022, a Symposium on living agriculture related to organic farming topics was held in Prague (Czech Republic). The main topics for discussion were: organic agriculture as one of the types of sustainable management, how to ensure proper nutrition of plants and soils, and what is social farming. The event included a conference, various discussion sessions, an exhibition of organic products and services from the Czech organic sector, as well as business networking, and a trip to an organic company.
The organizers of the event added a topic from Ukraine at the request of Jiri Urban, Director of the Section for Plant Production, Central Institute for Supervising and Testing in Agriculture (ÚKZÚZ, Czech Republic), who for many years helped build the Ukrainian organic sector in Ukraine and conducted various trainings on organic agriculture in different regions of Ukraine.
On March 4, Natalie Prokopchuk, Organic Component Coordinator of the Swiss-Ukrainian Program “Higher Value Added Trade from the Organic and Dairy Sector in Ukraine” made a report at the event. She presented information on the war in Ukraine and the state of the organic sector, and its problems and called on the participants to support Ukraine and its organic sector in these difficult times. Natalia stressed that some organic producers have become defenders of their land and breadwinners for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, territorial defense, the population in general, and refugees in particular.
During the event, participants were interested in what is happening in Ukraine, what are the challenges of organic producers in Ukraine, and were happy to hear about what is happening firsthand. A series of events on Ukrainian-Czech cooperation is planned.
