Definition of the problem:
Organic farming experienced a considerable expansion in Europe in the last decade. From 1993 to 2001, average annual growth rate were 26% for the EU-15 (Hamm and Gronefeld, 2004). In the whole of Europe, in 2004, almost 6.3 million hectares were managed organically by approximately 170,000 farmers (Willer and Richter, 2005). The most important factors for the past growth were a growing demand for organic food and direct payments for organic management practices. While both factors remain important in the future, it is expected that the further development of organic farming is predominantly determined by the general policy environment of the farming sector in Europe (see Häring et al., 2004). The impact of policy measures on agriculture is commonly analysed by employing quantitative models. Until today, however, only a few models were developed that take organic farming explicitly into consideration (e.g. Häring, 2003; Offermann, 2003; Richter et al., 2001; Hartnagel et al., 2000) and the existing ones are for various reasons less suited to be used in practice as a policy assessment tool.
Project aims:
In the light of the enormous impact of agricultural policy on the further development of organic farming and the lack of suitable impact analysis tools the aim of this project is to develop a quantitative policy impact model for organic farming.
