Research Centre of Organic Farming

Research Centre of Organic Farming is an interdisciplinary centre in order to bring together different organic farming and food studies in Estonian University of Life Sciences and to initiate further activities.

Our main activities are:

• Research of organic food and agriculture;
• Promotion and education in that field;
• Finding the best solutions for developing organic sector in a close cooperation with entrepreneurs.

We investigate different organic plant production technologies and their influence on soil and plant health, production quality, biodiversity etc. There are small-scale field trials nearby centre, but we also start to develop a network for experiments in organic producers’ fields.

To raise public awareness about organic food, we introduce organic principles in different levels, starting from kindergartens.

To develop organic sector, we also work with organic processing and marketing issues. We work in a cooperation with entrepreneurs and research institutions from Estonia and abroad.

In 2011 a report comparing over 150 research studies „Quality of Organic vs. Conventional Food and Effects on Health“ was compiled in ELUS. This report analyses the nutritional quality of organic and conventional food as well as the health effects of pesticide residues, nitrates, mycotoxins and artificial additives and gives an overview of animal and human experiments.