Report:

 

We are very happy that the conference for the release of the report “Slow Trade Sound Farming” was a great success, with more than 150 participants and around 50 speakers.

 

Josef Sayer and Barbara Unmüßig opened the conference as the main organisers. Following them, Wolfang Sachs and Tilman Santarius from the Wuppertal Institut presented the principles, the analysis and the proposed solutions outlined in the report to a variegated audience consisting of representatives from civil society organisations, and the fields of science and politics. The presentation by the two authors was accompanied by the appreciatory and critical comments of P.V. Sateesh from India, Peter Rosset from Mexico, and Franz-Josef Feiter from Brussels.

 

After a short lunch break the participants had the opportunity to discuss specific issues of the “Slow Trade Sound Farming” reform in small working groups.

At the joint final panel discussion of the conference, international speakers addressed the question as to whether the time is right to fundamentally rethink the existing agricultural trade regime and talked about what a new international institutional setting could look like. We are very happy that we managed to attain such interesting speakers for the panel as, for example, Martin Khor, Ulrike Höfken and the “former” Bishop Schwaz.

With the release of the report, the EcoFair Trade Dialogue has now started its second phase. Until 2009 we will concentrate mainly on initiating a broad and intensive debate on how to organise a socially and ecologically fair and sustainable agricultural trading system. In order to do so, we will organise several conferences, workshops, and seminars in the EU and in the south. Furthermore, we will initiate various in-depth surveys on certain issues of the reform proposal.

 

The conference has shown that the report has the potential to initiate an intensive and fruitful debate und we would like to thank all of you who have been interested in, enthusiastic towards and committed to our project.

 

We are looking forward to your feedback and comments now at the beginning of the second phase and we are especially looking forward to your support for our political objective, to organise a social and ecological sound agricultural trading system.

Warm regards, your EcoFair Trade Team.

 

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