Values in organic farming and their implications

Summary

In the process of planning new research in organic farming in Denmark, various issues concerning the principles of organic farming and its future development have come out for discussion. The new research is intended to be pro-active and forward-looking, and help to promote organic farming and a sustainable development of agriculture in general. These objectives can, however, only be fully satisfied if a degree of consensus is reached on the aims and principles of organic farming. We suggest that three general principles of action and development can be set out, the cyclical principle, the precautionary principle and the nearness principle. Given that there are such special principles of acting in organic farming, how well are these expressed in practice?