War has been raging in Ukraine since 24 February. Since then, COA's main focus has been on securing the team and the staff of the partner organisations. Despite the war, it was possible to maintain permanent contact with all colleagues in the partner institutions. Every day we have an online meeting with all the German projects funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) and the staff in and outside Ukraine.
Another new focus of the project is now also the active participation in activities to build up and support aid measures in Ukraine. In this way, despite the extremely critical conditions in Ukraine, it has already been possible to help effectively and quickly in a short time. The foundation for further support has been laid. The project's existing networks with organic farming organisations and activists in Germany are very helpful here.
Activities included, for example, actively approaching these organisations to acquire food donations, which met with a very positive response. Until today (28.03.), about 500 pallets of food and hygiene articles have been collected and transported to Ukraine via the initiative www.deine-ukraine-hilfe.de . Similar to the above mentioned initiative, BMEL funds a broader coordination unit for food donations from companies in the food retail and food industry. This coordination unit is embedded in measures of the bilateral cooperation project Agritrade Ukraine of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL).
Furthermore, fundraising campaigns were started or supported for the organisations "Permaculture" and "Ecovillages" as well as a biodynamic farm near Lviv (see here: https://621b426d411ea.site123.me/). The donations benefit the more than 1000 refugees who have currently found shelter on the farms of these organisations. More than 20,000 euros have been raised so far (as of 25 March).
In addition, COA initiated a fundraising campaign with GLS Treuhand's Future Foundation for Agriculture and developed a concept for the individual relief measures for which the donations are to be used: https://zukunftsstiftung-landwirtschaft.de/ueber-uns/aktuelles/2022/ukraine/ For the future, it is planned that COA will support the campaign through its expertise on organic farming in Ukraine and direct contacts with the farms there, while the administration of the donations will coordinated by the foundation
It is planned for the future that COA will support the campaign through its expertise on organic farming in Ukraine and direct contacts with the farms there. It is also planned to integrate refugees from Ukraine, who are known to the project from cooperation, into this action and thereby also open up an opportunity for them to earn money in Germany (for the refugees) or in Ukraine.
