Sustainability of organic farming in a global food chain perspective
GLOBAL ORG 2007-2010
International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems
ICROFS
Sustainability of organic farming in a global food
chain perspective
Agriculture and food systems, including organic agriculture, are undergoing a technological and
structural modernisation strongly influenced by the growing globalisation. Danish Research Centre
for Organic Food and Farming (DARCOF) initiated a so-called knowledge synthesis in order to
provide an overview of the potential role of organic agriculture in a global perspective. The work
resulted in the book ‘Global Development of Organic Agriculture: Challenges and Prospects’.
The GlobalOrg project arises from this knowledge synthesis. The overall objective of this project is
to determine to what extent and under which conditions organic farming may reduce local and
global negative environmental impacts and provide sustainable improvements in poor farmers’
livelihoods within the framework of the global food supply chain and the increased urbanisation.
The influence of globalisation
The organic agricultural movements can be seen as
tangible efforts to create a more sustainable
development. However, these efforts are challenged
by globalisation, which strongly influences organic
agriculture and food chains. Furthermore, global
agriculture and food systems hold large differences
between, on the one hand, industrialised farming
and consumption based on global food chains and,
on theother, smallholder farmers and resourcepoor people primarily linked in local food markets
in low-income countries. This development gives
rise to a number of questions such as: Does global
trade with organic products support a sustainable
development? Can organic agriculture contribute
to global food security? Does organic certification
safeguard natural resources and improve working
conditions? Can fair trade with organic products be
realised?
On this background, Danish Research Centre for
Organic Food and Farming (DARCOF) initiated a
so-called knowledge synthesis in order to provide an
overview of the potential role of organic agriculture
in a global perspective. Scientists from Denmark,
Europe, Africa, South America and USA took part in
the work, which also included an international
workshop. The work resulted in the book ‘Global
Development of Organic Agriculture: Challenges
and Prospects’. This GlobalOrg project arises from
the knowledge synthesis.
Overall objective of the project
 The overall objective of this project is to
determine to what extent and under which
conditions organic farming may:
 reduce local and global negative
environmental impacts

provide sustainable improvements to poor
farmers’ livelihoods within the framework
of the global food supply chain and increased urbanisation.
The project is organized into five work packages as
detailed below:
1. Urban demands for organic food, food
chain organisation and markets
The work focuses on urban settlements in metropolises in developed as well as developing countries.
The objectives are:
 To describe and explain how urban socio economic factors influence changing consumer
perceptions for short versus long procurements
systems supplying organic food.
 To describe and explain the variation of
consumers’ own perceptions on modes of
organic food distribution and place of market
sale.
 To develop a supermarket life cycle model aiming
at analyzing organic food producers’ supply
strategies to supermarkets and their consumers
locally and globally.
2. Agro-ecology of organic farming
systems
This work package applies complementary methodological approaches to establish to what extent
different organic production systems build on agroecological principles and to what extent and how
that particular system promotes the sustainability
of the production system under influence of the
market spheres? The objectives are:
 To identify how organic production systems
comply with the organic principles and ideas of
diversity and recycling of nutrients and organic
matter under varying degrees of integration into
local and export markets.
 To assess the degree of productivity of smallholder
organic farms and potentials for improving yields.
 To give quantified environmental and socio economical assessment of selected organic farming
systems.
3. Product-oriented environmental
assessment
This work package will perform environmental
assessments of the production systems, product
chains and food systems analysed in WP1 and 2,
and will deliver input to dialogues with consumers
and actors in the food chain. Specific objectives are:
 To assess the environmental profile of organic
food products in relation to long and short food
chains relevant for informing Danish consumers
and other urban consumers.
 To give quantified environmental assessments of selected organic farming systems in a product oriented perspective.
 To compare and develop different methods for
environmental appraisal suitable for assessing
combinations of food items in conjunction with
different product chains and modes of transport.
4. Institutions and livelihood
This work package pursues an understanding of the
institutional framework and incentive patterns un-
der which organic agriculture performs in different
social settings and at different levels. The work has
been designed in the tradition of development research and focuses on non-industrialized countries,
but is inspired by European social science, policy and
institutional analysis of the European situation. The
objectives are:
 To determine to what extent formal policies and
programmes are conducive to the development
of organic farming in the four case countries.
 To determine the level of local understanding
and nature of embedment of organic ideas,
principles and practices at relevant levels of
agency in the four countries, i.e. among public
and private agencies as well as farmers’ organi sations.
 To study the impact of organic farming on rural
development and determine under which policy
and market conditions price premiums and/or
development values benefit smallholder farmers
in developing countries.
5. Integrated assessment of organic
farming in a global perspective
This work focuses on methodology to assess consequences of a large-scale conversion to organic
farming on food security on a regional scale, and to
perform an integrated assessment of the means to
stimulate as well the consequences of conversion to
organic farming in relation to environmental impact
and livelihood of smallholders. Specific objectives
are:
 To assess the consequences of a large-scale
conversion to organic farming for food supply
and food security among urban and rural poor
on a regional scale.
 To synthesize the insight into the different
aspects of the food chain from consumption
back through the supply chain to smallholders’
livelihood and the agro-ecological effects of
organic farming.
 To compare rural food security projections with
environmental appraisal and rural smallholder
livelihood in organic farming.
Sustainability of organic farming in a global food chain
perspective
GLOBAL ORG 2007-2010
Project leader
John E. Hermansen,
Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Aarhus
Department of Agroecology and Environment
Blichers Allé 20, P.O. Box 50
DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark
Phone +45 89 99 12 36; Fax +45 89 99 12 00
Email: [email protected]
Project participants
Paul Rye Kledal and Henning Høgh Jensen, Faculty
of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen
Henrik Egelyng, Danish Institute for International
Studies (DIIS), Department of Development Research
(DoDR)
Links
Project homepage: www.globalorg.elr.dk/uk
www.icrofs.org
About ICROFS
The International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems (ICROFS) is a “centre
without walls” where the research is performed in interdisciplinary collaboration
between research groups in different institutions. The centre is an expansion of the
former research centre DARCOF, which the Danish Government in 2008 decided to give
an international mandate and an international board.
The main purpose of ICROFS is to coordinate and monitor international research in
organic food and farming systems in order to achieve optimum benefit from the
allocated resources. Further, the aim of ICROFS is to initiate research and create impact
of the research results through support and dissemination of high quality research of
international standard.
More information at www.icrofs.org
ICROFS