Economics Analysis of Certification Systems in Organic Food and Farming

The main project objective is to generate research based knowledge on how to improve the organic food certification system in terms of efficiency, transparency and cost effectiveness.

Project Aims:

To provide baseline information on the organic certification systems.
To analyze the implementation of organic certification systems and to assess all relevant expenditure and transaction costs.
To investigate the main benefits of certification systems for consumers.
To develop and apply economic models that improve risk-based certification systems and allow costs of certification systems to be related to the benefits gained.
To develop recommendations from the research for different groups of stakeholders.
To include stakeholders’ views into the project work and to share the project results with them and the public.

ORC's Role:

ORCs main role is to provide some baseline information on organic certification, to provide data from an UK certification body, to carry out work with UK consumers about knowledge of certification standards and logos.

Project leader and partners:

University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart and research partners in several countries

Deliverables:

Gerrard, Catharine, Janssen, Meike, Smith, Laurence, Hamm, Ulrich and Padel, Susanne (2011) UK consumer reactions to organic certification logos. British Food Journal. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, awaiting publication.

Padel, Susanne and Leach, Katharine (2012) Two exploratory case Studies of Alternative Certification in the UK CERTCOST Project Deliverable No 21 (Part C). Organic Research Centre, Newbury. Newbury, UK. (submitted to the co-ordinator).

Dabbert, S et al. (2012): ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF CERTIFICATION SYSTEMS IN ORGANIC FOOD AND FARMING: SYNTHESIS REPORT OF RESULTS D 23 (External PDF 1.1MB)

Dabbert, S (2012) Recommendations for Improving the Organic Certification System (External PDF 587KB) (2011)

Padel, Susanne (2011) Lifting the lid on organic certification. Organic Research Centre Bulletin, December 2011, 107, pp. 8-0.Padel, S.

Padel, Susanne (2011) Can certification encourage organic operators to become better organic operators? In: Organic is Life. Paper presented at 17th IFOAM world congress. Namyanju, Republic of South Korea, Systems value track- Standards and verification.

Padel, Susanne (Ed.) (2010) The European Regulatory Framework and its Implementation in Influencing Organic Inspection and Certification Systems in The EU. Organic Research Centre – Elm Farm , Newbury.

Padel, Susanne; Smith, L and Janssen, Meike (2010) Are shoppers aware of Organic Certification logos? Organic Research Centre Bulletin, August 2010, pp. 4-5.