Use and efficiency of public support measures addressing organic farming in the EU

Project Aims:

The study provides a comprehensive description and review of the public support measures in place for organic farming, including a categorisation of the mix of the measures used. It covers the following elements in 27 Member States referring to the period 2007 – 2013. This includes measures in rural development programmes; measures under CAP Pillar 1 (Article 68 of Regulation 73/2009, top-ups in the Common Market Organisation for fruit and vegetables) and national support schemes, including, where relevant, schemes at regional level.

The study also carries out a case-study analysis based on six member states addressing the following four study questions:

1. To what extent has the use of public support measures addressing organic farming contributed to the development of the number of farms, area of land under organic management and growth of the organic market for organic products?
2. What are the factors influencing the effectiveness and efficiency of the measures?
3. What links exist between the Rural Development Programmes and the European Action Plan or national action plans for organic farming?
4. To what extent have Member States developed an overall strategy to develop organic farming?

The members states considered for this analysis are (nine programming regions): Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany (Bavaria, Lower Saxony), Italy (Marche, Puglia) and the United Kingdom (England, Wales). These represent different types of public support for organic farming, different strategies on organic food and farming and differ in terms of the size of the organic sector and the level of institutional development.

ORC's Role:

ORC was responsible for the analysis of the six member states in relation to the links between policy support for organic farming and the European Action Plan and evaluating the development and coherence of organic sector support strategies (study questions 3 and 4 above). The main basis for this analysis was structured analysis of policy documents and an expert workshop which was held at ORC on the 27th June with participants from government, industry and research. ORC was also responsible to provide information for the overview of public support measures in all four devolved administrations of the UK.

Project leader and partners:

Von Thuenen Institute (vTI) Germany
FiBL

Project Output:

The final report of the study is available here.

Padel, Susanne; Sanders, Jürn and Stolze, Matthias (2012) Use and efficiency of EU public policy measures for organic farming. Organic Research Centre Bulletin, June 2012, 109, pp. 10-11.

An overview of European support policy for organic farming was presented by Susanne Padel on the 28th September at the special workshop on Government Policies for the Promotion of Organic Agriculture with a Focus on the Asian Pacific Region on the in relation with at the17th IFOAM conference in South Korea. See orgprints.org/19635.