CIHEAM

The Mediterranean Organic Agriculture Network (MOAN) is an institutional network established by CIHEAM-MAI Bari, whose goal is to mobilise the Ministers of Agriculture of 24 Euro-Mediterranean countries: Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia (FYROM), Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Palestinian Territories, Tunisia and Turkey.

MOAN provides decision makers with a forum in which to share information on organic agriculture, exchange ideas about good practice, pool common regional strategies for the sector and highlight its potential and specificity on the world stage.

Background and development
- Founding of MOAN (1999): MAI Bari established a Mediterranean network of experts in biological agriculture to encourage the spread of organic agriculture in the Mediterranean countries through promotional measures, education and research work and to compile data on the current state of the sector in the region. The network brings together representatives of universities, research institutes and ministries of agriculture of 11 of the 13 CIHEAM member countries.
- Reorganisation of MOAN (2006): MOAN became an institutional network and was extended to 24 Euro-Mediterranean countries. National representatives are ministry of agriculture officials responsible for overcoming the problems facing the organic sector. This reorganisation was completed in the aftermath of the Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Agriculture (Venice, 2003), which recommended that organic agriculture be seen as an essential factor in the development of regional countries and a possible means of strengthening the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.

Aims
- To create partnerships in which players can share and solve problems and work on common strategies for the development of organic agriculture in the Mediterranean Region
- To encourage exchange and cooperation between regional ministries and institutions working in the field of organic agriculture and between national organic networks and communities
- To make the principles and wide repercussions of organic agriculture more widely known in the region

Priority areas
- Promotion of Mediterranean organic agriculture internationally
- Collection and dissemination of statistics on organic agriculture
- Development of a regulatory and policy-making framework
- Institutional capacity building
- Training and research in organic agriculture

MOAN website: http://moan.iamb.it

Top of page

MOAN

Current Events