organics and rural living

here's an article i wrote in 2005 on the effect of organic farming on rurality, summarising research done by Matt Lobey

A new report from the Centre for Rural Research in Exeter (UK) on the benefits of organic farming to rural communities has just been published.

The report finds that organic farmers are breathing new life into rural communities, while bringing new skills and innovative ideas on marketing into agriculture.

The report was commissioned by DEFRA, (the UK's department of environment, food and rural affairs) and also had Elm Farm Research Centre (EFRC) as project partners.

Of the 640 farmers surveyed, 31 per cent beginning to farm organically had never worked in the agriculture before. This compares to 21 per cent for non-organic farms.

The above reflects the fact that for many, organic farming is a chosen lifestyle option. While it is easy to be dismissive of the word lifestyle, what it means here is that organic farmers are organic farmers because they choose to be, not because they inherited a farming business that they may or may not be interested in.

Organic farmers are also younger, more likely to be university educated, and more likely to have been born further away from the farm they own than conventional farmers.

66 per cent were aged between 35 and 54; for conventional farmers, the figure was 45 per cent. Just over half of the organic farmers surveyed held a degree or a diploma; 30 per cent of conventional farmers did. 29 per cent of organic farmers lived more than 100 miles from where they were born compared with 17 per cent of non-organic farmers.

There are obviously positive and negative aspects to this last point. Being less embedded in the local community and established rural life on the one hand contrasts with being part of the revitalisation of rural communities, with new ideas, interests and practices.

Another important finding was that organic farmers are much more likely to be involved in different marketing strategies and on-farm activities than conventional farmers. This has knock-on effects, both for the farmer and the rural community.

�Some 21 per cent of organic farms had diversified trading enterprises on them compared to just 5 per cent on non-organic farms. And on organic farms that diversification is far more likely to be connected to added value food processing and retailing rather than the conventional model of farm contracting or other services,� according to EFRC�s Lawrence Woodward.

He also points to a greater level of uptake of grant aid by organic farmers in helping fund diversification (64 per cent) compared to less than 50 per cent in conventional farm businesses as a sign of the business awareness and focus amongst the organic sector.

In trading terms, organic farmers are making the most of direct retail sales to consumers with very short supply chains. All farms in the study (conventional and organic) with direct sales showed a much higher value of sales per hectare, but this increase was far more pronounced in the organic sector.

�On average organic farms with direct trade generated sales of �4983 per hectare. That is three times the level of sales, recorded at �1654 per hectare, for all farms without any direct sales�

This on-farm diversification, along with the innovative retailing initiatives leads to higher levels of rural employment on organic farms; organic farms accounted for 46 per cent of the sample but employed 57 per cent of all people employed in it. However, there were a greater number of casual/part-time jobs on organic farms.

Naturally, there are similarities and differences between the UK and Irish experiences of organics, and there has not been a piece of research like the one just outlined conducted in Ireland.

However, such research as there is both in Ireland and from other parts of Europe, suggests that there are more similarities than differences. This holds for direct sales, place-of-birth, age, education and gender (there are a greater number of female organic farmers, proportionately, than female conventional farmers, according to most research which examines this area)

In the context of an aging and decreasing conventional faming population, this new report shows how organics can contribute to the revitalisation of rural communities.