Has organic farming modernised itself out of business? An analysis of reverting organic farmers

Summary

In Denmark organic farming presently experiences a recession with 500 organic farmers leaving the organic sector this year (out of a total of 3500 farmers) and a lot more are considering to revert. A range of earlier studies has reported on the process of modernisation of organic farming. Not at least in Denmark where a lot of conventional farmers have converted to the organic mode of production and where conventional/traditional production and distribution channels have adopted a line of organic products, and the established extension and advisory service includes both conventional and organic farming.
The analysis in this paper is based on two qualitative interview studies among Danish organic farmers reverting in three regions of Denmark. The one region is unique in Denmark regarding organic farming. It has a higher percentage of organic farmers than anywhere else and a local history, including a German farmer minority by whom conversion was driven in the first place. The analysis will discuss why the farmers are reverting (and why they converted in the first place), what organic farming represents for them, what did they learn, has farming organically changed anything with respect to farming practices, local community etc. The study is part of a bigger project on localisation of organic farming in Denmark.