European Organic Production Statistics 1993 - 1996

Detailed official statistics on organic farming in Europe are scarce. This volume is the most authoritative source for statistical data on organic farming with respect to land area, number of farms, livestock and crop production for all EU member countries plus Norway, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. Time series are provided from 1993 - 1996. This book is essential reading for policy makers, the private sector, researchers and students in the field of economics and politics of organic farming

Organic Farm incomes in England and Wales 2004-05(OF 0189)

Results from research work carried out for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) by the Organic Research Group at the Institute of Rural Sciences, UWA on the economic performance of organic farms in 2004/05 are presented in this report. This report is the last of a series1 of four on organic farm incomes from 2001/02 through to 2004/05 as part of project OF0189. The main aim of this work is to assess the financial performance of organic farms differentiated by farm type, in order to inform DEFRA policy-making with respect to economics of organic farming, and to provide a basis for assessments by farmers, advisers and other interested parties of the farm-level implications of conversion to and continued organic farming. This research area builds on previous economics work on organic farming carried out by Institute of Rural Sciences, UWA (Project OF0190, covering 1995/96 to 1998/99). In this report, time series financial data are shown for an identical farm sample for the 2003/04 and 2004/05 financial years, covering seven organic farm types including cropping, horticulture, lowland and LFA dairy, lowland and LFA cattle and sheep and mixed farming systems. The identical farm samples comprise farms that are present in both 2003/04 and 2004/05. The total number of organic farms for 2004/05, also referred to as the full farm sample data, is shown alongside the identical datasets. Summarised and detailed financial input, output, income, returns to labour and capital, liabilities and assets and some physical performance measures are presented based on current Farm Business Survey (FBS) data collection and collation guidelines. The full samples of organic farms per robust farm type are sufficiently large to give some reasonable level of confidence in the data; however, it should be noted that the organic farm samples are not statistically representative of their type, although the results can be seen as a reasonable indication of farm income levels for comparable organic and conventional farms. Smaller identical farm samples should be treated more cautiously as there is a possibility for outliers (especially larger farms) to have some influence on the average results. An additional element of this work is the inclusion of comparable conventional farm data for the farm types shown. Each organic farm within this study was matched with an appropriate cluster of conventional farms based on the resource endowment indicators for individual organic farms. Broadly speaking, the indicators included farm type, FBS region, Less Favoured Area (LFA) status, utilisable agricultural area (UAA), milk quota holding (where applicable) and farm business size. The cluster farm data were averaged for each farm type to derive the comparable conventional farm (CCF) data based on the organic farms from the identical and full farm samples. Overall, the identical sample of organic farms showed a similar or higher level of net farm income for all farm types in 2004/05 than in 2003/04 with the exception of lowland dairy farms, which decreased over the period. On comparing the organic data with the comparable conventional data, the greatest differences in performance were seen in the cropping, lowland cattle and sheep and mixed farm types where organic farms performed significantly better in 2004/05. LFA cattle and sheep farm types performed similarly to the comparable conventional farm samples while LFA organic dairy farms achieved lower net farm incomes than the conventional comparison farms. The full sample datasets compared similarly to the identical datasets for both organic and conventional farms in 2004/05. Gross margin data are presented for organic dairy herds on a herd size and top five performing herd basis. Cattle and sheep gross margins are shown for lowland and LFA farm types. Crops shown include winter and spring wheat, spring barley, winter and spring oats, beans, ware potatoes, calabrese, cauliflower and cabbage crops. Where applicable, 2003/04 gross margin data are shown alongside the 2004/05 data. Benchmarking data are shown for organic milk, suckler store, finishing beef and lamb production enterprises. The results for the beef and lamb enterprises show the significance of support payments in making these enterprises viable, raising questions about the possible impact of the single farm payment on producer perceptions of their profitability

Economics of organic farming (extension to OF0125)(0F0190)

This project OF0190 was an extension to OF0125 to cover completing the comparison data for 1997/98 and to extend the data collection by one further year (1998/99). The final reports for the two projects are therefore being submitted jointly. The OF0125 report covers the period 1995/96-1997/98, for which a detailed report was submitted to MAFF in July 1999, and a revised detailed report including a complete set of comparisons with conventional farms was submitted to MAFF, after revisions, in July 2000. That report has now been published at www.organic.aber.ac.uk/library/organic farm incomes.pdf. A detailed report for 1998/99 has been submitted to MAFF in March 2001, and will be published at the same internet site once accepted. The report presents results from research work carried out for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) on the financial performance of organic farms in 1998/99. The aim of the research was to assess the financial performance of organic farms differentiated by farm type, in order to inform MAFF policy-making with respect to organic farming, and to provide a basis for assessments by farmers, advisers and other interested parties of the farm-level implications of conversion to and continued organic farming. To provide an idea of the trends over time, where possible data for continuous samples of farms are presented for 1997/98 and 1998/99. The specific objectives were to extend the previous project (OF0125, covering 1995/96 to 1997/98) to collect and collate data on the financial performance of organic farms, differentiated by farm type . This was achieved through the collation of financial data collected under three different MAFF-funded research projects supplemented by data collected on other farm types. The samples of organic farms are small because of the limited number of organic holdings over 8 ESU (European Size Units) with identifiable holding numbers in 1996, when the previous study was started. As the sample is small there is limitation on how the results may be extrapolated to the wider population of organic farms, especially as the structure and objectives of those converting to organic production in the late 1990s may be different from those that converted in the 1970s and 1980s. Detailed financial input, output, income, liabilities and assets and some physical performance measures are presented for 1998/99. Where an identical sample of five farms is available, data are presented for 1997/98 and 1998/99 for the sample. The organic farm samples are so small that outliers (especially larger farms) have a large influence on the average. If the samples were larger, general trends would be more apparent and less influenced by individual farms; despite this, some explanation has been attempted of trends and changes in inputs, outputs and incomes. However, great care must be taken in extrapolating results. Of those farm types for which a continuous identical sample of five farms was available, Net Farm Incomes (NFI) increased for cropping (£281/ha) and dairy farms (£487/ha) in 1998/99 compared with 1997/98; in both cases outputs as well as inputs increased between years. Mixed farms showed an average reduction in outputs and increase in inputs, lowering the average NFI to £15/ha in 1998/99. The five lowland cattle and sheep farms improved a negative NFI of £161/ha in 1997/98 to a positive £7/ha in 1998/99 through an increase in livestock outputs with a similar level of inputs to that of 1997/98. Due to the high level of farmer and spouse labour on horticultural holdings, the average Management and Investment Income (MII) of the sample was negative, but the average NFI was £1,836/ha. On four holdings, 1998/99 average outputs were 92%, and inputs were 97% of the previous year, resulting in an average NFI in 1998/99 for that group of 75% of the 1997/98 result. The group of LFA farms, consisting of four cattle and sheep and one mixed farm, achieved an average NFI of £72/ha in 1998/99

How cost-effective are direct payments to organic farms for achieving environmental policy targets?

Since 1993, the Swiss federal agricultural policy has been providing financial support for organic farming via area payments. Like other voluntary agri-environmental measures (AEM), these payments are intended as incentives for farmers to comply with defined production standards. Such payments lead to better environmental performance, as compliance with organic production standards averts negative and provides positive external effects compared to conventional or integrated farming (CRER, 2002). For instance, organic farming is largely not dependent on external inputs. This minimises the resource use of the farming system and limits the nutrient loads in the system, which in turn leads to less overfertilisation and reduced eutrophication risks involving nitrogen and phosphorus (Haas et al., 2001). Besides effectiveness, against the background of limited public budgets, efficiency in delivering environmental impacts plays a fundamental role in the further development of direct payment schemes (Swiss Federal Council, 2009). The targeting and tailoring of policies to achieve maximum effectiveness with a given budget is essential (OECD, 2007). It is therefore necessary to compare both environmental effects and the societal costs of AEM with each other in order to provide a basis for economically sound policy design (Pearce, 2005). Agricultural economists hold differing views on the cost-effectiveness of organic farming support payments. Von Alvensleben (1998) argues that the organic farming area support payments are not economically sound, as the policy goals could be achieved more efficiently using more flexible and targeted combinations of various AEM. The economic rationale behind this argument was introduced by Tinbergen (1956), who theorised that an efficient policy requires at least as many specific instruments as there are specific goals. However, the Tinbergen Rule may not apply fully in this case due to interactions between policies, conflicting goals and the limited determinability of different aspects of environmental performance. Furthermore, the multi-purpose character of organic agriculture could increase its cost-effectiveness due to its potentially lower transaction costs compared to targeted AEM (Dabbert et al., 2004). Empirical papers on this question lack. Thus, this paper aims to compare the cost-effectiveness of a) direct payments to organic farms and b) AEM, in providing environmental services. This is done, using the current Swiss agricultural policy scheme as a case study

A Modelling Approach for Evaluating Agri-Environmental Policies at Sector Level

This paper presents a new approach to evaluate the cost effectiveness of agri-environmental policies at sector level. Policy uptake, cumulative environmental effects and public expenditure are identified as the main determinants of cost-effectiveness. On the basis of the sector-consistent, comparative-static, farm group model FARMIS, the determinants of policy cost-effectiveness at sector level are addressed. Firstly, intensity levels for the FARMIS activities are defined in order to model uptake of agri-environmental policies with FARMIS, secondly, life-cycle assessment data is attached to these intensity levels to determine environmental effects of the policies and thirdly, public expenditure is calculated under consideration of transaction costs. This paper concludes delineating the strengths and limitations of the approach

Horizontal activites. QLIF subproject 7: Horizontal activities

QLIF subproject 7 represents four horizontal activities common to the project, namely: • Environmental and sustainability audits • Cost-benefit analyses and socio-economic impact assessments • Dissemination and technology transfer • Training of graduate and postgraduate researchers Activities in the horizontal research have shown that organic crop production systems generally are more energy-efficient and have lower greenhouse gas emissions than the conventional production. In terms of dissemination the QLIF website has been central and the QLIF newsletter has attracted more than 1000 subscribers. Coupling of the website with the open access database Organic Eprints provides a prospective source of project information that can be accessed also by future stakeholders in organic and low-input systems. Training events arranged annually for students have contributed to proliferation of skills and knowledge gained in QLIF. Also, these events have served to mediate the attitude needed for research in organic and low-input farming

Modelling Organic Dairy Production Systems

In this study, a large number of organic dairy production strategies were compared in terms of physical and financial performance through the integrated use of computer simulation models and organic case study farm data. Production and financial data from three organic case study farms were used as a basis for the modelling process to ensure that the modelled systems were based on real sets of resources that might be available to a farmer. The case study farms were selected to represent a range of farming systems in terms of farm size, concentrate use and location. This paper describes the process used to model the farm systems: the integration of the three models used and the use of indicators to assess the modelled farm systems in terms of physical sustainability and financial performance