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on agrarian (e.g., Thompson 1988 , 2008 ; Carruthers 2009 ) and specifically, organic
ethics (Alrøe and Kristensen 2000 , 2004 ; Alrøe et al. 2006 ; Padel et al. 2007a , 2009 ).
We built on this understanding and offered an additional contribution by reviewing
the IFOAM Principles and related ethics and their implementation all along the
organic agrofood chain as a means to focus on the relevance of ethics in the organic
approach. The underlying idea was to stimulate consideration of the potential of the
ethical principles for assessing the diverse patterns in which these ethics arise along
the organic agrofood chain today. These findings set the stage for our reflections on
the future of an ethically driven organic agrofood chain.

14.1.2 The Ethical Foundation of Organic

From the beginning, organic was an ethically driven movement. This, however,
changed over time (see Chap. 2 ) . A driving force of the organic movement
has been to act as a response or alternative to mainstream social, economic,
ecological or ethical issues. Movement activists and leaders have represented a
wide variety of societal interests and groups well beyond farming. The ethical
concepts (worldviews) and the normative ethics (deontology, consequentialism,
virtue ethics) represented by key figures who have been historically important in
the organic movement (Rudolf Steiner, the Müllers, Aldo Leopold, Lady Balfour
or Rachel Carson) do not present a uniform ethical foundation for organic. At best,
we suggest that the movement is founded and unified around an ecocentric/holistic
worldview, expressed in the IFOAM Principles. In addition, with few exceptions
(popular agrarian writers in the US, or Vandana Shiva from India (Shiva 2000 )) the
movement today has become “mainstream”.
IFOAM, founded in 1972, decided to identify and label an ethical approach
for the worldwide organic movement. With significant contributions from research
scientists and members, these first IFOAM Principles have served as the ethical
foundation for IFOAM since the 1980s. The most recent version of the Principles
(Health, Ecology, Fairness and Care (IFOAM 2009 )) provide the ethical framework
for all organic agrofood actors (see Chap. 2 ) . No other food and agricultural
movement is grounded on such a clearly articulated set of ethical principles. These
IFOAM Principles illustrate an ecocentric/holistic moderately deontological ethical
position.

14.1.3 Organic Differentiation

The chapters in this volume clearly illustrate the diversity throughout the organic
movement. Contemporary organic actors continue to reflect a wide variety of
discourses, practices and values. While we refer to the “organic movement”, it is by
no means uniform, but continues to be full of contradictions, tensions and polarized