NOARA Maiden Biennual Meeting held via zoom on 30th June, 2020
The Network of Organic Agriculture Researchers in Africa (NOARA) organized its maiden (virtual) meeting on the 30th of June, 2019. The meeting was hosted by NOARA Coordinator, Dr Olugbenga O. AdeOluwa who started with an introductory and welcome address after individual prayers at 11:00GMT. He introduced the Registration Committee and Board of Trustee members, their positions and the regions they represent. He also introduced NOARA Secretariat staffs before handing over coordination of the meeting to the Chairperson, Board of Trustee, Prof. Nkiru Meludu. The outcome of the meeting were as follows:
- Sharing of organic agriculture research outcomes on the platforms especially on issues relating to organic inputs and pest management.
- The principles of organic agriculture on Health, Ecology, Fairness and Care should be emphasized when disseminating information or offering professional service on organic agriculture.
- Different programmes that will accommodate other key stakeholders in organic agriculture from different regions of the continent should be initiated and language barrier eliminated.
- NOARA constitution has accommodated both literate and non-literate farmers as beneficiaries of organic agriculture research outcomes.
- Non-learned farmers can be captured in AfrONet research working group from national organic agriculture movements (NOAMs) wherever NOARA activities or thematic groups could not accommodate them.
- Proper collaboration of members will help a long way in providing solutions to farmers’ problems and ensure evidence-based research outcome.
- Low awareness on organic agriculture should be improved upon by government officials and concerned stakeholders to bridge the gap among stakeholders in the organic agriculture value chain across the continent.
- Members should rather focus on collaborative research and depend less on externally funded research to improve on evidence-based research outcome.
- Responses and contributions should be shared on the platform to save time and to involve more members.
Proposed membership fees (one time payment): Africans – $40
Non Africans – $50
Proposed Annual Dues: Africans -$ 20
Non Africans – $30
Proposed journal (AJOAE) processing fee, after acceptance: $100 and $50 for committed members.
Observations
- Cooperate membership fees to be included in the proposed fees and benefits of cooperate membership should be emphasized to encourage collaboration with eligible organizations.
- Deliberation about cooperate membership due should be concluded on the platform with proposed benefits of membership to involve more members on the discourse and to also save time.
- Registration committee members to be made regional representatives and to mobilize members from their regions for progressive and evidence-based organic agriculture research.