The development of farm size on danish organic farms - a comment on the conventionalisation debate

Summary

Average farm size is reported to increase on Danish organic farms, giving rise to the question whether one of the perceived measures of ‘conventionalisation’, land concentration, is taking place. The increase may be due to size differences in the farms entering and leaving the organic sector or to size enlargement on existing organic farms. Size enlargement is examined in a cohort of 236 farms which converted to organic farming in 1997 and remained organic in 2004. In this group the largest 5% of farms covered 24% of the area in 1997, increasing to 27% in 2004. Changes in farm size on a total of 302 organic farms show that a majority of farms increased their size, with larger farms being more likely to enlarge than smaller. There are no indications that larger organic farms expand their area directly at the expense of smaller organic farms, however, a full evaluation requires that farms leaving the organic sector are also included.