Building Farm Resilience: The Prospects and Challenges of Organic Farming

The concept of socio-ecological resilience is applied to agricultural systems in general and to the farm level in particular. Resilience has three defining characteristics: the amount of change the system can undergo while maintaining its functions and structures, the degree of self-organization, and the capacity for learning and adaptation. To assess the resilience of a farming system, various elements that can build resilience are identified. Using these elements, the paper assesses organic agriculture using the IFOAM Basic Standard. The analysis shows that organic farming has a number of promising characteristics building resilience. However, when analyzing the current development of organic Rebecka Milestad is Doctoral Candidate, Research School in Ecological Land Use, Department of Rural Development Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. Ika Darnhofer is Assistant Professor, Institute of Agricultural Economics, University of Agricultural Sciences Vienna, Austria. Address correspondence to: Ika Darnhofer, Institute of Agricultural Economics, University of Agriculture Sciences Vienna, Peter Jordan Strasse 82, A-1190 Vienna, Austria (E-mail: [email protected]). The authors would like to thank Sonja Hadatsch, Lennart Salomonsson, Walter Schneeberger, Maria Tengö and Magnus Ljung for interesting discussions and comments on earlier drafts of this paper. The research was funded by the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, and the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS). The article is partly based on a paper presented at the 5th International Farming Systems Association European Symposium “Farming and Rural Systems Research and Extension: Local Identities and Globalization,” Florence, Italy, April 8-11, 2002. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, Vol. 22(3) 2003 http://www.haworthpress.com/store/product.asp?sku=J064  2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 10.1300/J064v22n03_09 81 D ow nl oa de d by [ U ni ve rs ity o f W is co ns in M ad is on ] at 1 9: 14 3 1 M ar ch 2 01 5 farming practice in light of the effects of government regulation and market dynamics, there is a danger that this quality is lost. Therefore, conversion alone may not be enough to ensure farm resilience. The ability of organic farming to realize its resilience building potential will depend on the ability of the organic movement to adapt and learn from the current experiences. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website:  2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]