Organic Farming Research
Research into socio-economic and policy aspects of organic systems has been undertaken at Aberystwyth University since 1981, both at European level (co-ordinator of or partner in 4 R&D projects and 3 CA) and nationally funded projects for DEFRA in London and for the Welsh Assembly Government.
Research topics include the development of policy support and rural development, standards, farm income of organic farms, costs of production, marketing, and conversion to organic farming of dairy and other livestock farms.
Several members of staff involved in organic research also teach on the BSc Organic Agriculture 1-year top-up degree scheme and relevant postgraduate courses.
There are close links to Organic Centre Wales, a centre funded by the National Assembly Government of Wales, providing information about Organic Farming to various stakeholders in Wales and informing policy development. Many publications of the Organic Research Group are archived in Organic Eprints, an international open access archive for papers related to research in organic agriculture.
Staff
| Name | |
|---|---|
| Sue Fowler | smf@aber.ac.uk |
| Pip Nicholas | pkn@aber.ac.uk |
| Susanne Padel | sxp@aber.ac.uk |
| Nic Lampkin | nhl@aber.ac.uk |
| Simon Moakes | svm@aber.ac.uk |
| Tony Little | jll@aber.ac.uk |
Current and recently completed research projects
TEAMPEST: The aim of this EU funded project is to provide a solid methodological framework and empirical evaluation that can assist policymakers in identifying the true impact of pesticide use in agriculture and horticulture and an assessment of the external costs of their use. The IBERS team is involved in studying socio-economic factors influencing willingness to adopt low pesticide input system among arable and horticultural producers.
Staff involved: Pip Nicholas, Simon Moakes and Tony Little
CertCost: The main project objective of the EU funded project is to generate research based knowledge on how to improve the organic food certification system in terms of efficiency, transparency and cost effectiveness. The IBERS team is responsible for a baseline review of the regulatory framework and of factors influence organic food certification and is involved other areas of activity.
Staff involved: Susanne Padel, Sue Fowler and Simon Moakes
Organic Farm Incomes in England and Wales: Farm business monitoring for organic farms of all types (including dairy, beef and sheep and mixed farms in England and Wales) funded by DEFRA using FBS methods and standards. Results are published DEFRA statistics and used as background for the regular publication of the Organic Farm Management Handbook.
Staff involved: Simon Moakes, Nic Lampkin and Susanne Padel
CORE-ANIPLAN: The project is primarily based on collaboration between research institutions with regard to evaluating, analysing and testing existing knowledge and experiences of animal health and welfare planning. This knowledge comes from current research activities and existing animal health promoting systems in the participating countries. This is expected to enable adaptation of animal health planning, animal health and welfare assessment through animal based parameters as well as advisory systems and farmer groups across borders and into the diverse conditions in many different European regions.
Staff involved: Pip Nicholas and Susanne Padel
QLIF: The Integrated Project QualityLowInputFood aims to improve quality, ensure safety and reduce cost along the organic and “low input” food supply chains through research, dissemination and training activities. Our input concentrates on socio-economic impact in life-stock food chains.
Staff involved: Nic Lampkin and Pip Nicholas
CORE-FCP: Farmer Consumer Partnerships. This project investigates marketing and communication strategies by which organic farmers try to include higher ethical values in their production than the statutory ones. The aim is to know which communication arguments for ethical aspects have proved to be the most promising from the consumers’ point of view in different countries.
Staff involved: Susanne Padel, Natasha Ayers (nta@aber.ac.uk - School of Management and Business, Aberystwyth University)
EEC 2092/91 (Organic) Revision: The overall objective of this project is to provide recommendations for the revision and further development of the EU Regulation 2092/91 and other standards for organic agriculture. The project addresses how basic ethical values can be integrated in organic standards and how the dependency on conventional inputs in the area of feeds and seeds can be further reduced.
Staff involved: Susanne Padel, Nic Lampkin and Pip Nicholas
ORGAP: The European funded research project Evaluation of the European Action Plan for Organic Food and Farming gives scientific support for the implementation of the European Action Plan, and it will assess its long-term and short-term effects.
Staff involved: Nic Lampkin, Ian Jeffreys and Pip Nicholas
Organic Benchmarking: Aims to help farmers identify their costs of production and builds on the farm income work (text to be edited)
Staff involved: Andrew Jackson and Nic Lampkin
Quality and environmental benchmarking: The aim of the project is development of a benchmarking system that encompasses non-financial outputs including social impact and animal health and welfare. It is intended that the final tool can be used by farmers and policy makers.
Staff involved: Sue Fowler
EU-CEE-OFP: The project aims to identify how the complementary development of Organic Farming in both existing EU states, Switzerland, and in Central and Eastern European (CEE) Accession states can be fostered through policy design and innovation.
Staff involved: Nic Lampkin, Pip Nicholas, Ian Jeffreys
SAFO: A European Commission funded Concerted Action. The objective is to improve food safety and animal health in organic livestock production systems through active communication of research results and conclusions. Furthermore, the project supports the development of subtle EU-standards on organic livestock production.
Staff involved: Susanne Padel and Pip Nicholas
EISfOM: The project documented existing data collection efforts in relation to organic markets. Although data is NOT being collected in connection with this project, one of the tasks has been to identify which organizations regularly collect organic market data. The project has produced country reports for the 32 participating countries, and in April of this year a seminar was held where experiences with data collection and possibilities to improve the quality of data were discussed.
Staff involved: Nic Lampkin and Andrew Jackson
OMIaRD: The project completed in Feb 2004 investigated Organic Marketing Initiatives and Rural development funded under Key Action 5 of the European Union’s 5th Framework for Research and Technological Development. As the first major research project to link the two key EU policy areas of sustainable agriculture and rural development, OMIaRD aimed to examine all aspects of the marketing of organic food in Europe, with a focus on rural development. The project was co-ordinated by Prof. Peter Midmore from the School of Business and Management at Aberystwyth University.
Staff involved: Susanne Padel
