Abstract
This paper pursues a dual task. The first part examines the ethics of organic farming practices identifying the common core of values that distinguishes organic from conventional practices. It is argued that to make normative sense of organic farming, the cultural and social components of the practice must be taken into account. The second part analyses Council Regulation 834/2007, a Regulation passed to amend Council Regulation 2092/91 on organic production of agricultural products and to make it ‘more transparent’ and principled. We suggest that the principles forming the basis of the 2007 Regulation fail to reflect the normative account of organic farming as developed in the first part of the paper. Council Regulation 834/2007 sees the value of organic farming in the end product, the consumer good produced, rather than in the practice itself. The paper argues that such an approach is flawed. Moreover, the 2007 Regulation significantly neglects the distinctive position of small organic producers in the overall framework of organic production, placing small producers at EU level in a supposed and unfair competition against industrial producers.
Published Version
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