Organic marketing

The organic sector today has new entrants of large-scale businesses and numerous mergers and buyouts in recent years. As the organic market is ultimately determined by consumers, an understanding of their preferences is critical to gain an insight into the future evolution of the organic market. This chapter reviews the studies on consumer preferences and purchasing behavior. It discusses marketing channels, their evolution, and markets by farm commodity. The chapter considers some emerging issues that are shaping the future organic food market to identify relevant research questions and challenges. Direct marketing is an attractive option for small- to medium scale farms, allowing them to receive retail-level prices with relatively low marketing costs. A major development in the organic produce sector was the “salad mix boom.” Complete and current production data, coupled with up-to-date crop enterprise budgets, provide valuable information regarding welfare implications of agricultural-related policies on the organic farming sector.