Framework for Re-thinking Ethics in the Organic Movement - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 272

p. 141). The IFOAM Principles are not advertised, even in organic markets. Thus, it
is not surprising that consumers are unaware of the ethical foundation of organic. In
contrast to numerous and ongoing discussions about organic practices and principles
in several farmer journals (Schmid and Kilchsperger 2005 ; Schmid 2007 , 2009b ),
consumer magazines rarely, if ever, discuss the IFOAM Principles.
Given the numerous constraints and limitations that consumers face, they must
rely on the integrity of the labels and the standards and certification processes behind
them. To avoid consumer fraud. Janssen and Hamm ( 2011 ) suggest that stricter
production standards and control procedures would improve the position of products
in the organic market.
At the same time, it appears that the actual prices for many organic products
are less than consumer perceptions of organic prices. It is commonly observed that
consumers do not choose organic because they perceive that organic products are
more expensive than conventional products. But Hamm et al. ( 2007 ) found that
consumers often lack knowledge about the real price of organic compared with non-
organic products. In reality, Hamm and others found that organic products were only
somewhat more expensive than non-organic products.
To conclude these observations on consumer knowledge about labels, standards
and organic certification: even when there is a significant amount of information
available, most consumers find it difficult to understand organic ethics. Knowing
the ethics, standards, labels and certification systems becomes its own field of
competence. It is as if the consumer needs to be trained in the skill of identifying
cases of mislabeling, symbols and descriptions of regulation and certification
processes (Yiridoe et al. 2005 ). Furthermore Dimitri and Oberholtzer ( 2009 ) argue,
that the likelihood of buying organic products is related to education, independent
of age, race, or ethnic.

13.2.2.2 Diverse Legal Obligations Among Organic Agrofood Chain

Actors

This section discusses how different groups of actors along the organic agrofood
chain are part of a regulatory system and how this affects a value-based movement.
We describe the different commitments of organic actors and the ethical conflicts
that that these differences raise.
A farmer's decision to convert the farm to organic requires a long-term accep-
tance of the organic system, even though the conversion period is fixed by law for a
specific number of years. During this period, farmers often must accept lower prices
for their “not-yet-organic” product (e.g., Acs et al. 2007 ; Kerselaers et al. 2007 ). If
for some reason they fail to meet the organic standards and regulations, they may
loose their organic certification (Padel et al. 2010 , p. 84) or in the EU in some cases
be required to return the 5 years of transition subsidy payments received and be
ineligible for organic certified status (cf. Zorn et al. 2013 ). In response, some organic
farmers have dropped their effort to be officially certified. They instead argue that