IFOAM International Animal Husbandry Alliance
The IFOAM International Animal Husbandry Alliance (IAHA) is an informal network of individuals and organisations interested in supporting and strengthening the development of organic animal husbandry.
Latest News
IAHA Strategic Vision Conference 2026
The IAHA, International Animal Husbandry Alliance and the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) will organise a 3-day conference on 28th to 30th of April 2026. The title of the conference is: Organic animal husbandry: a role model for the future of livestock?
The location will be at FiBL Switzerland in Frick.
Here you can download the “Save the date” flyer.
The “Call for contribution” is set to start on 1 March 2025. All thematic areas and key questions will be listed and downloadable at the conference website:
Activities in the Past
The IAHA activities included:
- A platform for researchers, advisors, farmers, and other interested parties to be heard. This was achieved through organising pre-conferences on animal husbandry held at Organic World Congresses (OWC) in Istanbul 2014, in New Delhi 2017 and in Rennes 2021 as well an on-line video conference in 2020.
- Workshops on organic livestock development issues at the OWCs;
- Policy recommendations for the IFOAM General Assembly on the organic sector and movement can support and develop animal husbandry (formulated as declarations)
Linked to the IFOAM Organic World Congress 2021, this conference took place on Monday, September 6th and Tuesday, September 7th 2021 in Rennes/France.
The IFOAM International Animal Husbandry Alliance offered an exciting and interesting programme with 30 papers and poster contributions. There were sessions on:
- Improving organic cattle systems
- Organic production and product and process quality
- Animal health management and use of bioactive medicinal plants and other alternative therapeutics
- Sustainable livestock rearing and breeding systems for pigs
- Development, research and dissemination needs in specific areas of organic animal husbandry (Discussion in groups)
- The future of animal husbandry – perspectives from farmers and (climate) scientists (invited key-note speakers through video).
The Pre-Conference was organised both, on site in Rennes as well as on-line video conference.
You can download the final updated programme of the IAHA Pre-Conference 2021 and proceedings.
The outcome of Pre-Conference was summarised in the Rennes Declaration of IFOAM Animal Husbandry Alliance (IAHA) .
Several key-note speakers made presentations about the role of animal husbandry in a sustainable agriculture, which can be downloaded here.
Emeritus Professor Donald Broom, University of Cambridge, UK: Assessing Food Sustainability;
Dr Florian Leiber, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, FiBL, Switzerland: Can global grassland regions be a backbone of sustainable food production? A case study roadmap;
Dr Marc Benoit, INRA, France: How could livestock farming maximise organic production at a global scale?
IAHA has organised a video conference on September 21, 2020 (morning) and September 22, 2020 (morning) on Organic Animal Husbandry Systems.
There were 15 paper contributions and 5 posters presented on different aspects of organic animal husbandry. 140 persons had registered.
All the texts of the contributions can be found in the IAHA proceedings “Organic Animal Husbandry systems – challenges, performance and potentials”,September 2020.
History
The October 2011 General Assembly of IFOAM - Organics International recommended that animal husbandry be given more emphasis by our organisation. A group of interested individuals, supported by the IFOAM World Board, began to organise and the IFOAM Animal Husbandry Alliance (IAHA) was born in November 2012 upon approval by the World Board. IAHA is the global platform for addressing animal health and welfare, breeding techniques, feeding (e.g. roughage versus concentrates), and related issues.
Contact
Want to get involved? Simply fill out the IAHA-Questionnaire to join the community and receive IAHA's newsletters
For all IAHA-related inquiries: iaha@ifoam.org
- Otto Schmid (Switzerland), chair
otto.schmid@fibl.org - Angela Escosteguy (Brazil)
angela@ibembrasil.org - Chris Atkinson (UK)
catkinson@soilassociation.org - Mahesh Chander (India)
mahesh64@email.com - Muazzez Cömert Acar(Turkey)
muazzezcomert35@gmail.com - Marion Johnson (New Zealand)
marion.johnson@actrix.co.nz - François Labelle (Canada)
flabelle@valacta.com
