home    about    browse    search    latest    help 
Login | Create Account

The supply chain and conversion to organic farming in Belgium or the story of the egg and the chicken

Baecke, Eveline; Rogiers, Geert; De Cock, Lieve and Van Huylenbroeck, Guido (2002) The supply chain and conversion to organic farming in Belgium or the story of the egg and the chicken. British Food Journal, 104 (3,4,5), pp. 163-174.

[thumbnail of Baecke_et_al_2002.pdf] PDF - English
Limited to [Depositor and staff only]

2MB

Document available online at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0007-070X&volume=104&issue=3/4/5


Summary

Organic products form a growing segment of the food market. Recent estimates speak about market shares between 1 to 4.25 per cent. In Belgium the share is only 1 per cent, but the market is growing exponentially. Organic farmers in Belgium often have to sell their products as conventional products because of non-efficient marketing systems. Marketing problems are also mentioned as one of the main reasons by conventional farmers for not converting. Most conventional farmers are not only rather sceptical about the long-term perspectives of getting a price premium for organic products, but consider the organisation of the supply chain as one of the main sources of uncertainty and therefore as a constraint for conversion. Therefore more efforts should be made to organise the supply chain for organic products. The problem seems to be that of the egg and the chicken: for a cost-effective supply chain a condition is to have enough producers, while for a lot of producers a cost-effective swupply chain seems to be a necessary condition to convert, mainly because of high transaction costs linked to non-efficient marketing.


EPrint Type:Journal paper
Keywords:Suppiy chain, Farming, Green issues, Organic food, Belgium
Subjects: Farming Systems > Farm economics
Farming Systems > Social aspects
Food systems > Markets and trade
Values, standards and certification > Consumer issues
Research affiliation:Belgium > University Ghent (UGent) – (Ghent) > Faculty of Bioscience Engineering
Belgium > Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research (ILVO) - (Merelbeke) > Unit Social Sciences
Deposited By: De Cock, Lieve
ID Code:18680
Deposited On:19 Apr 2011 09:17
Last Modified:21 Dec 2015 15:54
Document Language:English
Status:Published
Refereed:Peer-reviewed and accepted

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics