Objectives of the OrganicDataNetwork project

The project OrganicDataNetwork aims to meet the needs of policy makers and actors involved in organic markets by increasing the transparency of the European organic food market through better availability of market intelligence about the sector.

This overall objective will be broken up into the following  key objectives:

1. Bring together stakeholders and bodies actively involved in organic market data collection and publication and review the needs of end-users with respect to organic market data;
2. Provide an inventory of relevant private and public bodies that are involved with the collection, processing and dissemination of organic market data in Europe;
3. Classify existing methods of organic market data collection and develop criteria for quality improvement of available data;
4. Collect, store in a common format and provide access to currently available data on organic markets in Europe;
5. Develop and test common methodologies to assess the consistency of national data, with special reference to available data on trade flows;
6. Test innovative approaches to improve the data collection and market reporting in six case study regions;
7. Disseminate project results and develop recommendations including a code of practice for organic market data collection and network beyond the conclusion of the project.

To achieve these objectives, the OrganicDataNetwork project includes 15 partners (from 10 countries) who collect, publish and analyse such data. This partnership will closely co-operate with the European Commission, Eurostat, and statistical offices of the Member States, using existing structures for collecting and processing data on the organic market and stimulating the development of new ones by adapting existing models.

The partnership will act as a co-ordinating centre between stakeholders, and will result in a proposal for the establishment of a permanent network to achieve collaboration on statistical issues regarding the organic market.