Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Such studies should be very precise. Products should preferably be grown or raised on exper-
imental farms where production conditions can be controlled (Harker 2004), particularly when
several combinations or options within a production system are tested. Another useful approach
is the paired comparison of similar, neighbouring farms producing the same cultivar or breed
under the two different production regimes. Studies need to include some assessment of the
product to be consumed, including (if relevant) the preparation taking place in the home.
Surveys can still be useful since they integrate the outcome of all the factors along the
entire supply chain to test predictions and assess whether models are taking the relevant factors
into account, as well as generating new hypotheses when this is not the case. However, if done
as isolated studies, the results of food quality surveys obtained at the point of sale have very
little predictive power, unless extensive additional data are collected (e.g. origin, variety/breed,
storage extent, conditions). Often this is not possible.
Finally, when assessing results of previous studies in this area, the important rapid develop-
ment in organic production systems in recent years needs to be taken into account. For
example, between 1993 and 2000 the number of organic holdings in the EU increased from
29,000 to 130,000 (European Union 2001). Two general consequences of this expansion are
likely to have had profound implications for food quality, although neither can be measured
directly. First, the organic producers have become increasingly professionalised and special-
ised in response to the demand for large volumes of uniform products for the supermarkets,
Two to 15 years ago, depending on country, a substantial proportion of the marketed organic
food did not correspond to the conventional trade standards in terms of, for example, size and
blemishes, whereas today, most organic food superficially resembles conventional products.
Whether this is a quality improvement or not is debatable, but it means that results from survey
studies made before this transition are unlikely to be relevant today.
Another aspect of rapid change is that most organic producers and others involved in
organic supply chains have only been working with organic food for a few years. While organic
production, until recently, mainly took place in close-knit communities where newcomers
received extensive training and based their work on the accumulated experience of the com-
munity, the sheer volume of new producers has made such transfer of knowledge much more
difficult. Many producers base their work primarily on concepts learned in conventional pro-
duction with some adjustments to accommodate the requirements for organic certification. Of
course, these new producers eventually obtain experience through their own successes and
failures, but in the meantime, the quality of the food very likely deviates from what is typical
for experienced organic producers. This consequence of the expansion will almost inevitably
persist until the availability and quality of advisers catches up with expansion, and inf luences
the change in organic food quality over time in a pattern specific to each region and for each
commodity produced. A particular concern is that scientists studying organic food quality
also have very variable levels of expertise on the practical aspects of organic farming. Close
inspection of scientifically and well-designed investigations pertaining to organic food quality
often reveals that although the 'organic production' treatments normally conform to relevant
certification requirements, they often do not correspond to the practice of experienced organic
producers in the relevant region (e.g. as indicated by yield figures). This also affects the rele-
vance of the results of such studies, from extrapolation to assessments of the food available for
consumers.
Aspects of food quality
Food quality is not a single property that can be measured by an easily defined and agreed
method. The overall definition of food quality is a collection of food properties that satisfy or
exceed the expectations of the consumer. This comprises a very broad range of properties,
