ifoam'96 Book of Abstracts 11th IFOAM Scientific Conference 11-15 August 1996, Copenhagen, Denmark

ECOWEB FRONT PAGE SUBJECT INDEX AUTHOR INDEX

Posters

Italian Interprofessional Organization. P2; 23

U.B. Interprofessional Union of Organic Operators, Bologna 40126 Viale Masini 4/2

»U.B. Interprofressional Union of Organic Operators« founded in 1995 by several important Italian organizations involved in production and trading of organic products.
The Union associates are representative of more aspects of the Italian organic production than 1000 just farmers and 25.000 tons of organic products, but also of all types of production lines, growers' associations, processors' and traders' organizations and control bodies.
This particular organization structure is functional to the aims of the Union, proclaimed as promotion, development and protection of the organic sector. Operators in the field of organic production share many common exigencies, as the necessity of good ways of communication and information (and not only about organic production), as well as regulating the relations with consumers and public institutions. In order to reach these aims, U.B. is promoting following initiatives:
- Creation of data bank which includes information about Italian organic operators together with data related to the demand and the offer of organic products, when available.
- Constitution of Regional Committees (five committees have already been formed) in order to support the operators in following the accomplishment of the polices on regional level.
- Establishing relationship with important agricultural organizations like syndacates, growers' and processors' organizations and consumers' associations, as well as contacts with the public institutions interested on the subject.
- Organizing activities involving associates in order to improve communication by promoting information on topics related to the organic production and by collaborating white partecipating on specialized exhibitions (AGROBIOFRUIT, SANA).- Establishing contacts with international organizations as BIOCONVERGENCE in France, and with movements related to organic production like IFOAM in favor of exchanging experiences and, if necessary, of promoting common actions.
- Creation of working groups in Italy with the purpose to analyze problems related to the specific aspects of the organic production that need common action and to suggest possible solutions to the pubblic institutions interested.
- Promotion of services in collaboration with specialized organizations, when required by operators.
- Enforcing relationship with research Institutions, national and international, by promoting and coordinating the contacts between the research and the enterprises, in order to improve the knowledge about organic productions.
The first results shows that different entities involved in the organic production could work united to become more effective and representative and that also, important goals could be reached only by having global and interprofessional vision of the subject. We would like to participate in the development of this philosophy also in collaboration with other countries, with aspiration to enlarge the exchanges in the organic movement.