Some aspects of organic agriculture development in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Summary

Numerous authors and documents (IFOAM, OECD) focused social capital as critical for sustainable human and economic development. In this context social benefits that arise from organic farming is one of the factors that balance «competition» between organic and conventional agriculture. The paper presents some of the results of 6-years project on introducing and development of organic agriculture in the West Balkan countries, specified in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The authors discuss possibilities of organic farming as a matrix for overcoming social tensions and interpersonal relations created in war. Experiences from project indicate that systems of norms and standards and networking needed in exchange of experiences asked for collective action. Work in groups, separated by ethnic and social barriers at the beginning of the project, gradually changed to partnership based on individual contribution, regardless the «start positions». The approach: from environment, health and social aspects toward market and economic values, that offer or-ganic agriculture, could be instrumented in this sense, according to the project's results.