Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on policy on organic farming in europe.

Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on policy on organic farming in europe. This review outlines policies on organic farming in Europe.

According to Stolez and Lampkin (2009, p.237) and Darnhofer et al. (2010, p.67) Organic farming is an approach to agriculture that lays emphasis on environmental protection, food quality, animal welfare, as well as health, social justice objectives and sustainable resource use, and which relies on the market to sustain these objectives as well as balance for the internalization of externalities (e.g. environment, animal welfare).

Moreover, Stolez and Lampkin (2009, p.237) suggest that even though organic farming as a concept has existed for more than eight decades, only since 1985 has it become the center of considerable attention from policy-makers, environmentalists, consumers, as well as farmers in Europe. This defining moment corresponded with the growing concerns about the detrimental environmental as well as other effects of post-war agricultural development as well as the beginning of policies to support agri-environmental initiatives, together with organic farming. This was supported by the ratification in 1993 of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 2092/91, which laid a significant foundation for many of the policy as well as market initiatives that have followed, with the result that over 75% of the growth in Europe has taken place in the last ten years. In the past, in the absence of other support, organic producers relied on the consumer to back their practices as well as principles. At first, the organic food market established as a means to an end, effectively affording compensation to producers for the externalization of externalities, however the market is at present often perceived as an end itself. Nowadays, consumers usually perceive organic food as safe, healthy, as well as of high quality and for this, they are ready to disburse the price premiums.