Organic Farming: Policy and Prospects

Food retailers in Europe, including supermarkets, have responded to rapidly rising demand for organic produce. The organic sector has moved from a marginal production fad to a serious subject of policy concern for politicians and public servants involved in European agricultural policy. Drawing on a huge body of scientific research, this book - reviews the organic farming sector today and the policies developed towards it - assesses its contributions to the environment, food quality, farmers' incomes, and rural development - explains the key factors impinging on the organic farming sector in future - makes a detailed range of recommendations for future organic farming policy Contents 1 Organic farming: A grassroots movement taken over by policy? 2 Organic farming in Europe at the dawn of the new millennium 3 Organic farming's contribution to policy objectives 4 A Changing Policy Environment 5 Recommendations for future organic farming policy from: Dabbert, S. und Häring, A. M. und Zanoli, R. (2003): Organic Farming: Policy and Prospects. Zed Book

Stakeholder involvement in policy evaluation and development in 11 European countries: synthesis results

In an effort in bringing together stakeholders of the organic farming and general agricultural policy sector within the EU in April Mai 2004 a group of stakeholders met for a one day-workshop in 11 European countries (AT, GB, DE, DK, IT, CH, CZ, PL, SI, EE, HU) to formulate policy recommen¬dations for the development of organic farming sector. Close personal contact of participants in these workshops facilitated policy learning and innovation at the national level and provided a platform to form alliances to decide on further actions. This contribution presents the synthesised results from all national workshops highlighting the current situation of organic farming policy in Europe and providing recommendations for future policy instruments

Politik für den Öko-Landbau

Die europäische Politik zum ökologischen Landbau muss in einem europaweiten Aktionsplan besser aufeinander abgestimmt und weiter entwickelt werden. Zu diesem Schluss kommt eine soeben erschienene Studie von Wissenschaftlern der Universitäten Hohenheim und Ancona mit dem Titel „Politik für den Öko-Landbau“. Das Buch gibt in leicht verständlicher Form einen Überblick über den Status quo des Öko-Landbaus in Europa und diskutiert dessen wichtigste Aspekte im Verhältnis zur Agrarpolitik. Der Beitrag, den der Öko-Landbau zu Zielen der Politik leisten kann, wird ebenso diskutiert wie die Position des Öko-Landbaus im Spannungsfeld zwischen Agrarpolitik, WTO-Verhandlungen und Osterweiterung der EU. Mit Blick auf die Zukunft werden unterschiedliche Entwicklungsszenarien des Öko-Landbaus in Europa dargestellt. Abschließend werden Empfehlungen für eine sinnvolle Gestaltung der Politik für den Öko-Landbau ausgesprochen. In einem Geleitwort bescheinigt Frau Bundesministerin Renate Künast dem Buch eine „ausgewogene Dokumentation der Fakten und Meinungen“ und betont, dass insbesondere der europäische Blickwinkel des Buches interessante Ansätze für die Verbraucher und Agrarpolitik eröffnet. aus: Dabbert, S. und Häring, A.M. und Zanoli, R. (2002): Politik für den Öko-Landbau. Eugen Ulmer Verlag GmbH

Elements of a European Action Plan for Organic Farming

The paper gives a number of reasons why a European action plan for organic farming is needed. The elements of a European action plan are outlined. A first step of an action plan is to find as much as possible a coherent description and understanding of the situation of organic farming in Europe at the outset and the barriers to further expansion. Strategic decisions that have to be taken carefully are identified: What weight should be given to organic farming policy? Why does policy want to support organic farming? Is organic farming just a system for less favoured regions? How important are the protectionist elements in organic farming policy? The answers to these questions are important to choosing an effective policy mix. The paper argues that the following policies should be part of a European action plan: • Informing the consumer, especially developing a unified approach to a widely recognised common logo based on EU regulation 2092/91 and subsequent legislation. • Improving the functioning of the organic chain: Production, processing, distribution within the supply chain with major emphasis on improving information, education, technology development, research and extension for organic farming and its process chain. • Supporting organic farmers financially as remuneration for the production of public goods. • Reviewing related policies with direct influence on organic farming such as the general measures of the common agricultural policy or tax laws and others, in particular removing production constraints such as set-aside aimed originally at conventional producers. • Supporting creative conflict between conventional and organic farmers and building as much as possible a consensus on the long term objectives with respect to organic farming. A high priority should be given to measures dealing with improving the information on organic farming to consumers. It is recommended to closely monitor any realisation of an action plan and to adapt the plan accordingly. In order to turn already the development of the plan into a catalytic process for the organic sector it is important to involve the stakeholders in a systematic way

Actual and potential development of consumer demand on the organic food market in Europe

AbstractDevelopment of demand for organic foods on three European markets (Denmark, Italy and UK) was investigated by means of quantitative analysis of household panel data and qualitative analysis of consumer life stories and shopping patterns. Potential development was investigated by means of scenario analysis undertaken by experts. Considerable differences between households underlay patterns of increasing aggregate demand at national levels, and fluctuations over time were identified at the household level. Interest in purchasing organic products on a regular basis and actual changes in shopping practices did not proceed apace. Limited availability has constituted a major barrier to increasing demand among ‘regular’ users. Demand on the part of ‘occasional’ users reflected a wider range of barriers, including lack of interest in and knowledge about production and processing and lack of trust in stakeholders and certification procedures. A likely scenario for future demand is that of continued stable expansion, dependent upon whether increasing input costs will favour organic production, whether the relative gap between organic and conventional food prices becomes smaller, whether organic products will be distributed more widely on national markets, and whether support for research and conversion of organic production systems on the part of public authorities is enhanced

Harmonic Potential Theorem: Extension to Spin-, Velocity-, and Density-Dependent Interactions

One of the few exact results for the description of the time evolution of an inhomogeneous, interacting many-particle system is given by the harmonic potential theorem (HPT). The relevance of this theorem is that it sets a tight constraint on time-dependent many-body approximations. In this contribution, we show that the original formulation of the HPT is valid also for the case of spin-, velocity-, and density-dependent interactions. This result is completely general and relevant, among the rest, for nuclear structure theory both in the case of ab initio and of more phenomenological approaches. As an example, we report on a numerical implementation by testing the small-amplitude limit of the time-dependent Hartree-Fock-also known as the random phase approximation-for the translational frequencies of a neutron system trapped in a harmonic potential

Effect of information about organic production on beef liking and consumer willingness to pay

The present study was aimed to assess the effect of information about organic production on beef liking and consumer willingness to pay. Mean scores of perceived liking were higher for organic beef (OB) as compared to conventional beef (CB). Expected liking scores were higher for OB than for CB. For OB the expected liking was significantly higher than the perceived liking expressed in blind conditions (negative disconfirmation), whereas for CB no difference was observed. Consumers completely assimilated their liking for OB in the direction of expectations. Consumers showed a willingness to pay for OB higher than the suggested price (P < 0.001), the latter corresponding to the local commercial value for organic beef. We conclude that the information about organic farming can be a major determinant of beef liking, thus providing a potential tool for meat differentiation to traditional farms

application of advanced process control techniques to a pusher type reheating furnace

In this paper an Advanced Process Control system aimed at controlling and optimizing a pusher type reheating furnace located in an Italian steel plant is proposed. The designed controller replaced the previous control system, based on PID controllers manually conducted by process operators. A two-layer Model Predictive Control architecture has been adopted that, exploiting a chemical, physical and economic modelling of the process, overcomes the limitations of plant operators' mental model and knowledge. In addition, an ad hoc decoupling strategy has been implemented, allowing the selection of the manipulated variables to be used for the control of each single process variable. Finally, in order to improve the system flexibility and resilience, the controller has been equipped with a supervision module. A profitable trade-off between conflicting specifications, e.g. safety, quality and production constraints, energy saving and pollution impact, has been guaranteed. Simulation tests and real plant results demonstrated the soundness and the reliability of the proposed system

Levers and Obstacles of Effective Research and Innovation for Organic Food and Farming in Italy

The objectives of this paper are to present the dynamic of organic food and farming (OFF) research and innovation, to outline challenges in deploying programs and accessing funding, and to define key actions to foster the development of tailored quality research on organic farming in Italy. The baseline starts from the main outcomes that emerged during the World Caf\ue9 held in the frame of the Salone Internazionale del biologico e del naturale (SANA Expo) in 2018, where the Italian OFF research community met to build a convergence on scope and modus operandi in the research endeavor. These outcomes were examined in the light of the key features of the research and innovation projects funded in Italy in the last 10 years, respectively by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture and the regional administrations through the innovation support instruments in the Rural Development Plan programming periods. In the period 2009\u20132018, 70 research projects for a total funding of 21.081 million \ubf (&lt;0.1% of the value of the sector) were launched, addressing nine dierent topic areas. Over a similar period (2007\u20132019), 53 regional innovation projects addressing organic farming were activated for a total budget of 14.299 million \ubf (&lt;10% of the entire available funding). The implementation of interventions in the research and the innovation areas were often scattered in terms of the topics, disciplines, and types of supply chain/network addressed. The relatively high share of multi/interdisciplinary research and innovation projects aswell as the acknowledgement of the multi-actor approach as a fundamental step toward co-research and co-innovation were upshots that emerged from our analysis. The outcomes of this study can be used by competent national and the regional authorities to design their future research and innovation policies and interventions

Cognitive-behavioural treatment for subacute and chronic neck pain

BACKGROUND: Although research on non-surgical treatments for neck pain (NP) is progressing, there remains uncertainty about the efficacy of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for this population. Addressing cognitive and behavioural factors might reduce the clinical burden and the costs of NP in society.OBJECTIVES: To assess the effects of CBT among individuals with subacute and chronic NP. Specifically, the following comparisons were investigated: (1) cognitive-behavioural therapy versus placebo, no treatment, or waiting list controls; (2) cognitive-behavioural therapy versus other types of interventions; (3) cognitive-behavioural therapy in addition to another intervention (e.g. physiotherapy) versus the other intervention alone.SEARCH METHODS: We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and PubMed, as well as ClinicalTrials.gov and the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform up to November 2014. Reference lists and citations of identified trials and relevant systematic reviews were screened.SELECTION CRITERIA: We included randomised controlled trials that assessed the use of CBT in adults with subacute and chronic NP.DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently assessed the risk of bias in each study and extracted the data. If sufficient homogeneity existed among studies in the pre-defined comparisons, a meta-analysis was performed. We determined the quality of the evidence for each comparison with the GRADE approach.MAIN RESULTS: We included 10 randomised trials (836 participants) in this review. Four trials (40%) had low risk of bias, the remaining 60% of trials had a high risk of bias.The quality of the evidence for the effects of CBT on patients with chronic NP was from very low to moderate. There was low quality evidence that CBT was better than no treatment for improving pain (standard mean difference (SMD) -0.58, 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.01 to -0.16), disability (SMD -0.61, 95% CI -1.21 to -0.01), and quality of life (SMD -0.93, 95% CI -1.54 to -0.31) at short-term follow-up, while there was from very low to low quality evidence of no effect on various psychological indicators at short-term follow-up. Both at short- and intermediate-term follow-up, CBT did not affect pain (SMD -0.06, 95% CI -0.33 to 0.21, low quality, at short-term follow-up; MD -0.89, 95% CI -2.73 to 0.94, low quality, at intermediate-term follow-up) or disability (SMD -0.10, 95% CI -0.40 to 0.20, moderate quality, at short-term follow-up; SMD -0.24, 95% CI-0.54 to 0.07, moderate quality, at intermediate-term follow-up) compared to other types of interventions. There was moderate quality evidence that CBT was better than other interventions for improving kinesiophobia at intermediate-term follow-up (SMD -0.39, 95% CI -0.69 to -0.08, I(2) = 0%). Finally, there was very low quality evidence that CBT in addition to another intervention did not differ from the other intervention alone in terms of effect on pain (SMD -0.36, 95% CI -0.73 to 0.02) and disability (SMD -0.10, 95% CI -0.56 to 0.36) at short-term follow-up.For patients with subacute NP, there was low quality evidence that CBT was better than other interventions at reducing pain at short-term follow-up (SMD -0.24, 95% CI -0.48 to 0.00), while no difference was found in terms of effect on disability (SMD -0.12, 95% CI -0.36 to 0.12) and kinesiophobia.None of the included studies reported on adverse effects.AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: With regard to chronic neck pain, CBT was found to be statistically significantly more effective for short-term pain reduction only when compared to no treatment, but these effects could not be considered clinically meaningful. When comparing both CBT to other types of interventions and CBT in addition to another intervention to the other intervention alone, no differences were found. For patients with subacute NP, CBT was significantly better than other types of interventions at reducing pain at short-term follow-up, while no difference was found for disability and kinesiophobia. Further research is recommended to investigate the long-term benefits and risks of CBT including for the different subgroups of subjects with N