Organic farming is a key element in sustainable management of Europe’s natural land-based resources and the overall objective of the current political and legislative EU framework is to ensure a sustainable growth of organic production. This requires that organic farming develops in line with the organic market and that obstacles preventing EU farmers from joining the organic scheme are overcome.
This study investigates the distribution of added value along a small number of organic food supply chains and focusses on whether organic supply chains function effectively and efficiently. It contributes to a better understanding of the market dynamics and the factors that lead to added value creation, how added value is shared within the supply chain and in particular whether there is sufficient added value for agricultural producers to motivate their decision to join organic farming. Better information based on this study contributes to increasing the EU’s organic production capacity.