Abstract
Our study aimed to explore the factors limiting the development of the organic food sector in Poland from the perspective of processing, distributing, and retailing companies. We used a qualitative approach with in-depth semi-structured interviews with the management board representatives of 17 large- and medium-sized enterprises and the owners of 10 small and medium companies. The potential limiting factors, including legal, economic, technological, and environmental factors, were identified by reviewing the corporate and market reports of processing and retailing companies operating in the Polish organic sector. We used a thematic analysis recommended in the literature to analyze qualitative data. The main factors indicated by the managers were the legal concerns, limitations resulting from a lack of constant supply of organic raw materials, and increased competition on domestic and international markets. In addition, business activities in the Polish organic sector were affected by the instability of the financial situation in terms of financial liquidity, adequate cost, capital structure, and credits. The results of the study may be of value for policymakers to ensure sustainable development of the organic food sector in Poland.
Highlights
Organic farming is considered a fast-growing agricultural sector in European Union (EU)
We presented the results in four sub-sections: 3.1–legal limitations, 3.2–economic limitations, 3.3–technological limitations, and 3.4–environmental limitations
Some studies have analyzed the limitations in the organic industry, but a large part of their findings was related to organic farming
Summary
Organic farming is considered a fast-growing agricultural sector in European Union (EU). Organic agriculture offers many advantages from a policy perspective and could be an important part of strategies that aim to improve the sustainability and equity of the food system as reflected in, e.g., The European Green Deal [3] and EU Farm to. Green Deal is the need to move to a more sustainable agricultural production system that minimizes the environmental footprint of agriculture, and organic farming is one of the key positive solutions to this problem [3,9,10,11]. The Biodiversity Strategy, which is part of this Plan, set itself the target of 25% of the agricultural land area for organic farming in the EU by 2030, compared to 8% currently allocated to organic farming in the EU and 3%
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