Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 16.1
Percentage of organic retail food sales as a portion of total food sales in 2000 (after
Dabbert
et al.
2004)
Country
%
Austria
2.0
Denmark
3.0
France
1.0
Germany
1.5
Italy
1.0
Netherlands
1.0
Sweden
1.0
Switzerland
2.5
United Kingdom
1.0
Austria has the highest current percentage of land in organic production at 10%. Denmark has
the highest level of organic food in the marketplace at 3%, and among the other Nordic coun-
tries, Sweden and Finland produce a 1% share of organic food. The percentage of retail sales of
organic food as a part of total food sales in selected countries are shown in Table 16.1.
Some sectors in agriculture have much higher rates of production and sales. For example, in
Denmark the market share for organic oats was 27.2% and for organic milk was 23.5% in 2002
(GfK Danmark 2003). A survey in 2001 showed that only 10% of Danish consumers never pur-
chased organic foods (Wier
et
al
. 2005). Although the current levels of organic food sales in the
USA are moderate at 1.0% to 1.5%, this segment of the marketplace has been growing at 20% per
year for the past 20 years (Sooby 2003). While the organic food sector was traditionally domi-
nated by small and local processing and distributing companies, now there is strong interest in
the organic food business from larger and multinational corporations. Since 1985 there has been
a major transfer of ownership from the local and regional companies to the multinationals (Hen-
drickson
et
al
. 2001), along with the trend towards an industrial mode in the organic food sector
whereby large scale, specialised, globalised and decontextualised technical and logistical solu-
tions are commonplace. Support for increased education from the national political levels reflects
this increase in importance in the marketplace and in large corporations.
Acceptance of this change has been much less rapid in our educational institutions, where
the focus continues to be on the development of, and more efficient use of, technology, and
improving the efficiency of the industrial model of agriculture. The industrial model assumes
that labour and land are the most limiting factors to production, and that substitution of
capital for labour is more important than exploring ecological efficiency in production, and
far more important than finding the systems that are most socially viable. In the universities,
there is a strong adherence to traditional disciplines and specialised research and teaching.
The move from single disciplines to systems approaches, such as the study of whole-farm
systems and multifunctional landscapes, continues to be a slow conversion process and is not
a priority for most of our agricultural science colleagues (Langer
et
al
. 2006). In addition to the
challenges concerning methodological orientation, organic farming has often been discrimi-
nated against as being an ideology and not lending itself to scientific research. Fortunately, a
more pragmatic attitude among scientists is becoming dominant along with increased availa-
bility of research funding to develop organic practices. The effectiveness of the consolidated
research effort in Denmark through the Danish Research Centre for Organic Farming
(DARCOF) since 1995 and the recent creation of the International Society of Organic Agricul-
ture Research should help change attitudes within academic circles.
