Presentation

In 2009, the organic products market was estimated to be 2.4 billion Euros, having had a continuous growth rate of 10 % per year since 1999. This market is likely to remain booming, in consideration of the commitments made under the “Grenelle de l’environnement” and the increasing demand of consumers who wish to direct their food purchases toward products favouring a sustainable consumption. According to the Agence Bio, 77 % of the consumers consider organic farming as the way for future to tackle the environmental problems.

In light of this, actors within the organic food chain continue to have scientific arguments to promote organic farming as an exemplary and sustainable food production system.

Background and issues

Food Products are estimated to account for 20 to 30% of the environmental impacts caused by mass consumption products, the latter can be linked to major ecological problems, e.g. 50% of total European greenhouse gases emissions. One of the ways to tackle the problems related to food products is organic farming which is being promoted by the public authorities and becoming more and more popular among consumers. Organic farming is an eco-friendly agriculture technique, by avoiding the use of chemical products (fertilisers, pesticides, etc.) and encourages natural products and non polluting processes.

Many studies prove the environmental benefit of organic farming methods when results presented in terms of hectare of land used. However, impact calculations per unit of production (e.g. 100g chicken, one tomato) using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) lead to more heterogeneous conclusions. Further, most of such results are representative of Northern Europe. This leads to two questions:

• Can the results of these European LCA studies be applicable to the French situation, which is the case today in the absence of no other relevant data?
• Is it relevant to compare environmental impacts of non-organic product and its organic equivalent, to estimate the impacts and benefit of the organic farming, as the studies carried out so far seem to suggest? Indeed, it can be assumed that an organic consumer’s behaviour is slightly different from the average French consumer’s one, relatively to food product selection and quantities eaten (more cereals, less meat, etc.). How the organic market should position itself if one compares the environmental impacts over the life-cycle of products constituting the typical annual consumption of an organic consumer‘s compared to an average French consumer?

The members of this project team (BIO Intelligence Service, UR INRA-ALISS, Synabio, Casino, Triballat, the Life Claire, Pronatura and BIOCOOP) will attempt to answer these two questions.