Inventory of organic market data collectors established

The aim was to produce an overview of all the relevant public and private bodies and stakeholders involved with the collection, processing and dissemination of organic market data in the 27 countries of the European Union and  the candidate and potential candidate countries as well as in the countries of the European Free Trade Association.

In the first stage, the project partners combined resources to put together a list of potential contacts. The list was built up from databases from previous projects (such as EISfOM, EU-CEE-OFP), the database used by FiBL for its “World of Organic Agriculture” reports, the OrganicRules database from the CERTCOST project, and additional contacts supplied by project partners, particularly Mediterranean contacts supplied by Mediterranian Agronomic Institute in Bari (IAMB). The end result was a comprehensive list of over 600 contacts who may potentially collect some form of organic market data.

The second stage involved developing an online survey to be sent out to the contacts list to obtain information on organic market data collection in the EU and its neighbouring countries. The survey collected information about: the type of organisation, the type of data collected, data collection and analysis methods, frequency, availability, geographical coverage, sample size, and publication schedule.

The survey went live on 26th April and was closed on 30th June. In the meantime the link was sent out to the contacts list and project partners helped with contacting organisations and asking them to participate in the survey. The final response rate (of complete responses) was 28 percent.

Since the survey closed, the information that it received has been used to produce an inventory of data collectors and the deliverable 2.1 report based on the survey results will be completed shortly. It can be concluded from the responses that the market data collection effort remains very varied across Europe and that not all data that are collected are also published. This is problematic, as without good quality, accurate and timely information it is difficult for stakeholders to make decisions about the risks and benefits of investment. There is also a need to understand the reasons why there is currently not more organic market data collection undertaken as well as to understand the barriers to good quality data collection and dissemination. This is the basis for further work on harmonisation of data collection approaches and for improvement in data quality, which is planned as part of the OrganicDataNetwork project.  

Further information

Contact

• Catherine Gerrard, The Organic Research Centre

Links

• OrganicDataNetwork.net: Work package 2: Inventory of organic market data collectors
• Organic-Research.net: European research projects related to organic agriculture
• Organic-Research.net: Yearbook "The World of Organic Agriculture"