Determinants of Organic Farming Conversion

In this paper the behavioural change framework of Ajzen and Fishbein is used to explore whether attitudes towards organic farming, the perceived social pressure of the environment and the perceived feasibility of organic farming standards on the farm determine the willingness of farmers to convert to organic farming methods. These variables together with the business and personal objectives and the organic farming information seeking behaviour of the farmer were used in an ordinal regression procedure to predict the intended organic farming conversion behaviour of conventional farmers.organic farming, firm behaviour, Farm Management, Q01, Q21,

The foregone risk premium: a communicative and practical method for the evaluation of risk-return profiles in agriculture

Risk considerations have become increasingly important in nowadays agriculture, due to a variety of reasons. Surprisingly, the practice of formalized risk management is not widespread despite the huge amount of scientific literature on this topic. This discrepancy between risk science and extension is described by many authors. This paper presents a communicative method, rooted in financial economics, to evaluate risk-return profiles in a way that is communicative for individual farmers. The method is derived from the modern portfolio theory, in which individual assets are implicitly compared to the risk-return trade-off of that asset with the highest Sharpe ratio. We use this idea to compare individual risk-return profiles to a particular benchmark. The method can be used for evaluating different risk-return profiles of different farms, different risk management instruments and different production systems. To illustrate the communicative nature of our method, it is applied to evaluate risk-return profiles of conventional versus organic cropping systems.Risk and Uncertainty,

The Flemish Organic Research & Knowledge Network: bridging research and practice for organic food and farming in Flanders

The Flemish Organic Research & Knowledge Network (FORK-Network) forms since 2012 the heart of research and knowledge exchange for the organic sector in Flanders. The Fork-Network involves CCBT, NOBL and BBN. Drivers of the network are participatory research and knowledge exchange and dissemination of knowledge tailored to farmers

Modelling Farm Level Economic Potential for Conversion to Organic Farming

A farm model is developed for simulating the potential income change resulting from conversion to organic farming. The model uses conventional farm data, taken from the Belgian FADN. Given the normative character of the model, and the impossibility of calibration to historical conversion behaviour, two model variants, a rigid and a flexible, are created to broaden the analysis scope. Moreover, extra attention is paid to the verification process and sensitivity analysis. Results reveal that the economic potential for conversion is rather high, if farmers are willing to change their farm management sufficiently. Furthermore, conversion potential depends on the farm type and conventional farm characteristics. The model finally proves to be an interesting tool to analyse policy impact.organic farming, conversion period, farm model, linear programming, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, C61, Q12,

Assessing the potential impact of 11 CORE Organic Plus research projects using a quantitative and qualitative approach

Active engagement and participation of stakeholders in research and successful dissemination are seen as key pathways to achieve impact and close the gap between science and end users. Impact assessments help projects to meet their objectives and relevant impacts better. This deliverable assesses the impact of the CORE Organic Plus projects (2015-2018). It provides additional information and recommendations to the CORE Organic funding bodies to consider in future calls, selection, monitoring and evaluation procedures

Determinants of Organic Farming Conversion

In this paper the behavioural change framework of Ajzen and Fishbein is used to explore whether attitudes towards organic farming, the perceived social pressure of the environment and the perceived feasibility of organic farming standards on the farm determine the willingness of farmers to convert to organic farming methods. These variables together with the business and personal objectives and the organic farming information seeking behaviour of the farmer were used in an ordinal regression procedure to predict the intended organic farming conversion behaviour of conventional farmers

Mogelijkheden tot optimalisatie en structurering van het Vlaamse landbouwonderzoek in de biologische sector

Biologische landbouw wordt algemeen erkend als een voorloper om te groeien naar een duurzamere land- en tuinbouw. De ontwikkeling van de biologische sector in Vlaanderen wordt echter beperkt door een aantal operationele en institutionele inefficiënties waardoor de Vlaamse biologische landbouw niet het gewenste succes heeft. Om bepaalde problemen binnen de sector op te lossen en te zorgen voor een verdere toename van de productiecapaciteit is het essentieel om een goede afstemming van kennisopbouw, -uitwisseling en -toepassing na te streven. Het onderzoek voor biologische landbouw in Vlaanderen is echter nog onvoldoende gestructureerd en gecoördineerd om aan de noden van de sector tegemoet te komen en uiteindelijk te zorgen voor een competitievere biologische landbouwsector. Deze studie, in opdracht van de Afdeling Duurzame Landbouwontwikkeling (ADLO) van het Departement Landbouw en Visserij (DLV) van de Vlaamse Overheid, heeft als hoofddoel om uitgaande van de huidige situatie aanbevelingen te geven voor het structureren en optimaliseren van het onderzoek ten behoeve van de biologische landbouw in Vlaanderen. Op basis van een grondige screening van bestaande informatiebronnen is vooreerst het gerealiseerd onderzoek voor biologische landbouw in Vlaanderen geïnventariseerd. Tijdens diepte-interviews met vertegenwoordigers uit de onderzoekswereld en verschillende actoren uit de biologische sector is vervolgens gepeild naar huidige knelpunten binnen de kennisopbouw en -uitwisseling op het gebied van onderzoek voor biologische landbouw in Vlaanderen. Tijdens twee discussieplatforms met vertegenwoordigers van verschillende sectororganisaties, financieringsinstellingen, onderzoeksinstellingen en het beleid, zijn de analyses van de resultaten uit de inventarisatie- en interviewfase voorgelegd aan de deelnemers met als doel te komen tot een groter draagvlak van de geformuleerde aanbevelingen

Understanding the development of organic agriculture in Flanders(Belgium): A discourse analytical approach

Despite a fast-growing national consumer market for organic products and active governmental support for organic agriculture, organic production in Flanders has shown little growth since the late 1990s. Our discourse analytical approach offers important insights into the causes of the limited organic pro-duction capacity in Flanders complementary to more common political-institutional or actor-oriented perspectives. Our analysis reveals that for decades, a competition between two mutually exclusive organicfarming discourses has hindered a collaborative effort to contribute to a growth of the organic agricultural sector by conventional and organic agricultural communities, agricultural policy makers, and food market actors. Such collaboration however, proves to be necessary to stimulate a substantial growth inorganic production in a region like Flanders (Belgium). Our results suggest that facilitating the acceptance of non-competitive discourses across agricultural, political and food market stakeholders is vitalto support the development of organic agriculture. By revealing the added value of discourse analysisin clarifying agro-food developments, the paper supports an adoption of multiple research approaches when studying dynamics of change in the multi-dimensional fields of agriculture and food provision

The foregone risk premium: a communicative and practical method for the evaluation of risk-return profiles in agriculture

Risk considerations have become increasingly important in nowadays agriculture, due to a variety of reasons. Surprisingly, the practice of formalized risk management is not widespread despite the huge amount of scientific literature on this topic. This discrepancy between risk science and extension is described by many authors. This paper presents a communicative method, rooted in financial economics, to evaluate risk-return profiles in a way that is communicative for individual farmers. The method is derived from the modern portfolio theory, in which individual assets are implicitly compared to the risk-return trade-off of that asset with the highest Sharpe ratio. We use this idea to compare individual risk-return profiles to a particular benchmark. The method can be used for evaluating different risk-return profiles of different farms, different risk management instruments and different production systems. To illustrate the communicative nature of our method, it is applied to evaluate risk-return profiles of conventional versus organic cropping systems