Mechanisms in the shaping of organic food as strategy in the Danish food sector

Whether one is pessimist or optimist one can either phrase the development of organic agriculture and organic food in Denmark either as ‘only 7% of the agricultural area has been converted’ or ‘even 7% of the agricultural area has been converted’. The point of this paper is that one has to use both views in an analysis of the development of organic agriculture and organic food in Denmark.

On the one hand a new product niche and maybe even a new development path has developed and on the other hand the conventional agriculture is still dominating with more than 90% of the agricultural area. The paper analyses some of the changes that have taken place in the Danish food sector during the last 10-15 years with respect to organic food.

The paper looks for how changes in the systems of production, consumption, knowledge and regulation have interacted and what kind of coherence and dissonance among these systems and among different initiatives that seem to have had impact on the development. The paper was presented at The Greening of Industry Conference, San Francisco, 12-15 October 2003