Sustainability of organic farming in a global food chain perspective

Agriculture and food systems, including organic agriculture, are undergoing a technological and

structural modernisation strongly influenced by the growing globalisation. Danish Research Centre

for Organic Food and Farming (DARCOF) initiated a so-called knowledge synthesis in order to

provide an overview of the potential role of organic agriculture in a global perspective. The work

resulted in the book ‘Global Development of Organic Agriculture: Challenges and Prospects’.

The GlobalOrg project arises from this knowledge synthesis. The overall objective of this project is

to determine to what extent and under which conditions organic farming may reduce local and

global negative environmental impacts and provide sustainable improvements in poor farmers’

livelihoods within the framework of the global food supply chain and the increased urbanisation.

Sustainability of organic farming in a global food chain perspective

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GLOBAL ORG 2007-2010

The organic agricultural movements can be seen as

tangible efforts to create a more sustainable

development. However, these efforts are challenged

by globalisation, which strongly influences organic

agriculture and food chains. Furthermore, global

agriculture and food systems hold large differences

between, on the one hand, industrialised farming

and consumption based on global food chains and,

on theother, smallholder farmers and resource-

poor people primarily linked in local food markets

in low-income countries. This development gives

rise to a number of questions such as: Does global

trade with organic products support a sustainable

development? Can organic agriculture contribute

to global food security? Does organic certification

safeguard natural resources and improve working

conditions? Can fair trade with organic products be

realised?

On this background, Danish Research Centre for

Organic Food and Farming (DARCOF) initiated a

so-called knowledge synthesis in order to provide an

overview of the potential role of organic agriculture

in a global perspective. Scientists from Denmark,

Europe, Africa, South America and USA took part in

the work, which also included an international

workshop. The work resulted in the book ‘Global

Development of Organic Agriculture: Challenges

and Prospects’. This GlobalOrg project arises from

the knowledge synthesis.

The project is organized into five work packages as

detailed below:

1. Urban demands for organic food, food chain organisation and markets

The work focuses on urban settlements in metropo-

lises in developed as well as developing countries.

The objectives are:

To describe and explain how urban socio-

economic factors influence changing consumer

perceptions for short versus long procurements

systems supplying organic food.

To describe and explain the variation of

consumers’ own perceptions on modes of

organic food distribution and place of market

sale.

To develop a supermarket life cycle model aiming

at analyzing organic food producers’ supply

strategies to supermarkets and their consumers

locally and globally.

Overall objective of the project

The overall objective of this project is to

determine to what extent and under which

conditions organic farming may:

reduce local and global negative

environmental impacts

provide sustainable improvements to poor

farmers’ livelihoods within the framework

of the global food supply chain and

increased urbanisation.

The influence of globalisation

2. Agro-ecology of organic farming systems

This work package applies complementary meth-

odological approaches to establish to what extent

different organic production systems build on agro-

ecological principles and to what extent and how

that particular system promotes the sustainability

of the production system under influence of the

market spheres? The objectives are:

To identify how organic production systems

comply with the organic principles and ideas of

diversity and recycling of nutrients and organic

matter under varying degrees of integration into

local and export markets.

To assess the degree of productivity of smallholder

organic farms and potentials for improving yields.

To give quantified environmental and socio-

economical assessment of selected organic farming

systems.

3. Product-oriented environmental assessment

This work package will perform environmental

assessments of the production systems, product

chains and food systems analysed in WP1 and 2,

and will deliver input to dialogues with consumers

and actors in the food chain. Specific objectives are:

To assess the environmental profile of organic

food products in relation to long and short food

chains relevant for informing Danish consumers

and other urban consumers.

To give quantified environmental assessments

of selected organic farming systems in a product-

oriented perspective.

To compare and develop different methods for

environmental appraisal suitable for assessing

combinations of food items in conjunction with

different product chains and modes of transport.

4. Institutions and livelihood

This work package pursues an understanding of the

institutional framework and incentive patterns un-

der which organic agriculture performs in different

social settings and at different levels. The work has

been designed in the tradition of development re-

search and focuses on non-industrialized countries,

but is inspired by European social science, policy and

institutional analysis of the European situation. The

objectives are:

To determine to what extent formal policies and

programmes are conducive to the development

of organic farming in the four case countries.

To determine the level of local understanding

and nature of embedment of organic ideas,

principles and practices at relevant levels of

agency in the four countries, i.e. among public

and private agencies as well as farmers’ organi-

sations.

To study the impact of organic farming on rural

development and determine under which policy

and market conditions price premiums and/or

development values benefit smallholder farmers

in developing countries.

5. Integrated assessment of organic farming in a global perspective

This work focuses on methodology to assess con-

sequences of a large-scale conversion to organic

farming on food security on a regional scale, and to

perform an integrated assessment of the means to

stimulate as well the consequences of conversion to

organic farming in relation to environmental impact

and livelihood of smallholders. Specific objectives

are:

To assess the consequences of a large-scale

conversion to organic farming for food supply

and food security among urban and rural poor

on a regional scale.

To synthesize the insight into the different

aspects of the food chain from consumption

back through the supply chain to smallholders’

livelihood and the agro-ecological effects of

organic farming.

To compare rural food security projections with

environmental appraisal and rural smallholder

livelihood in organic farming.

Sustainability of organic farming in a global food chain perspective GLOBAL ORG 2007-2010

Project leader

John E. Hermansen,

Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Aarhus

Department of Agroecology and Environment

Blichers Allé 20, P.O. Box 50

DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark

Phone +45 89 99 12 36; Fax +45 89 99 12 00

Email: John.Hermansen@agrsci.dk

Project participantsPaul Rye Kledal and Henning Høgh Jensen, Faculty

of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen

Henrik Egelyng, Danish Institute for International

Studies (DIIS), Department of Development Research

(DoDR)

LinksProject homepage: www.globalorg.elr.dk/uk www.icrofs.org

About ICROFS

The International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems (ICROFS) is a “centre without walls” where the research is performed in interdisciplinary collaboration between research groups in different institutions. The centre is an expansion of the former research centre DARCOF, which the Danish Government in 2008 decided to give an international mandate and an international board.

The main purpose of ICROFS is to coordinate and monitor international research in organic food and farming systems in order to achieve optimum benefit from the allocated resources. Further, the aim of ICROFS is to initiate research and create impact of the research results through support and dissemination of high quality research of international standard.

More information at www.icrofs.org

ICROFS