Abstract

Organic farming emerged as a social movement promoting social justice and ecological sustainability within agriculture. In recent years, the organic sector has grown substantially throughout Europe. One contributing factor is strong policy support from the European Union, based on the general understanding that organic farming is conducive for sustainable development. Austria provides a relevant example of this development, both in terms of the expanding organic sector and in terms of national policy support. For this purpose, an exploratory case study in Austria was chosen as the main setting of this thesis. The concept of social-ecological resilience is found suitable as a framework to discuss sustainable agriculture in Europe since it takes the dynamics and interdependence of social and ecological systems into account. Social-ecological resilience has three defining characteristics: the amount of change a system can undergo while maintaining its functions and structures, the degree of self-organization, and the capacity for adaptation and learning. The objective of this thesis is to increase understanding of the development of organic farming by exploring the relation between the IFOAM Basic Standards of organic farming, farmers’ perspectives on organic farming, and the actual development of organic farming practices. A further objective is to develop the concept of farm resilience and to analyze organic farming within a social-ecological resilience framework. Analysis of the case study shows that farmers exhibit dual perspectives on organic farming. They see it as a preferred farming practice that promotes sustainable development but also as an imposed policy that makes farmers more dependent on subsidies. The resilience analysis finds that organic farming builds farm resilience if interpreted as in the IFOAM Basic Standards, while current organic farming practice may compromise farm resilience. Thus, organic farming has the capacity to build farm resilience provided the IFOAM Basic Standards are translated into practice. This thesis concludes that shifting the focus to qualitative aspects of organic farming is paramount during the current period of expansion. Farm resilience is found to be a useful concept to analyze farming systems; it also lends itself as an analytical tool for policy development.