Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 14.1 Strategic marketing of organic produce
(ALDI Australia 2006)
Do you sell organic products?
At ALDI our policy is to restrict our assortment to most-needed products. By
concentrating our buying power on these high-demand items we provide unbeatable
value to our customers. If demand for organic products continues to grow throughout
the general population, we will include these in our product range - provided we can
guarantee consistently high quality.
highlighted by Oppermann (2003). A Danish study (Hansen 2004) on changes in the working
environment for organic farmers revealed that not only the physical workload tends to increase
on organic farms, but also the amount of psychosocial stress. The latter is mainly the result of
the additional administrative workload and dealing with changes in market conditions, farm
size and employee relations (Hansen 2004).
On the consumption side too, inequalities in access to food seem to be brought out by
organic and other alternate food systems. The higher prices for organic food compared to con-
ventional food make organic food beyond the reach of poor people. Allen (1999) points out
that it was the industrialised food systems that reduced income-related class differences in
food consumption and made food more accessible to all. Ironically, the ways in which the
emerging alternate food systems are structured threaten to reverse or break down this level-
ling. Goodman (2004), commenting on the new rural development paradigm of Western
Europe and the new modes of food provision within it such as short food-supply chains, speaks
of these initiatives as overlooking social justice issues. In the long run they will favour a new
multitiered food system differentiated by income and class, and Goodman (2004) refers to
those citizens unable to secure access to safe, quality and nutritious food as the 'missing guests'
at the table. Ironically perhaps, there are now low-budget supermarkets such as the ALDI
Group that offer very affordable organic products for a specific niche of 'price aware, light
green, soft bio-consumers' (see Box 14.1 for a statement from ALDI on supply of organic
produce). However, these same low-budget supermarkets have a poor track record when it
comes to workers' rights and providing adequate worker compensation.
The driving principles of low-budget supermarkets are obviously different from those of
the certifying bodies of organically grown products. If there is a demand for a product, they
will find a supplier. This leads to dilemmas for the organic farming sector. Berlin-based
Märkisches Landbrot, one of Germany's largest organic bread and muesli producers, typifies a
perhaps overly principled stance. The company will not offer discounts to supermarket chains
that are looking for organic suppliers. Märkisches Landbrot's marketing director Sabine Jansen
says that to offer cuts to the big chains 'would do in the natural food stores'. For the same
reason,
Demeter
is unwilling to supply goods it certifies to nationwide discount chains like
Plus or ALDI. The result is that the organic products that fill Germany's bargain grocery chains
and upscale biosupermarkets increasingly come from somewhere else (Anonymous 2003).
A question arising from the social justice concerns referred to above in connection with
contemporary organic agriculture sectors in Europe and the USA would be the degree to which
some of these inequalities will be reproduced in 'developing' countries as their organic sectors
begin to be shaped by the consumption patterns and institutional structures of the 'developed'
countries. Raynolds (2004) reviewed the rising world organic trade and the expanding agrifood
networks between developing and developed countries. The rigorous controls in place and the
