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A framework for analysing the economic and social sustainability of organic agriculture and its contributions to rural development, with special reference to the European Union

Patricia L. Howard
[History] Paper presented at the European Society for Rural Sociology, 20th Biennial Conference, Sligo, Ireland, 19-22 August 2003
January 2004

Proponents of organic agriculture argue that many social benefits arise from organic farming. Some arguments are technologically deterministic - social benefits are an outgrowth of the organization of farm level production in organic farming systems. Others argue that such benefits derive from the political struggle to redefine relations between farmers and all others involved in the food chain. In this paper, I argue that the latter perspective fails to address the most central questions about social and economic sustainability and rural development. Rather, the central dynamics of organic farming are founded in the relation between organic and conventional farming and the 'competition' between the two. The substitution of chemical inputs in organic agriculture generally results in higher demand for labour in comparison with conventional agriculture, which has many far-reaching consequences in this relationship. Costs of production are higher in comparison to conventional farms across most farm types; there is a shift in labour supply towards unpaid family labour and low-paid, temporary unskilled labour; labour relations differ little from conventional agriculture and in fact higher labour costs in organic agriculture can readily increase the tendency to exploit labour in the sector, and the amount of drudgery increases. Changes in the intensity, quality, and timing of labour require adaptations at whole farm and whole farm-household level, involving new labour divisions, trade-offs in terms of the activities that people engage in, and new physiological and psychological workloads. Differences in resource access (land, labour and capital) and market competition influence the socioeconomic differentiation process in organic agriculture, and increased labour demand may lead to a disincentive to convert or an inability to convert on the part of labour poor farm households, or higher costs for those households. Differentiation occurs not only at farm level. Regional dynamics are also highly influential, and conversion rates are likely to differ between regions that differ according to factors such as wage and employment levels. The significance of prevailing socioeconomic conditions is overlooked by most of those who research social sustainability and rural development within organic agriculture. I provide an alternative framework for analyzing these that is centred on a labour/social relations of production perspective, and illustrates its application (including empirical data) especially with reference to Europe.