Estimating Supply and Demand of Organic Seeds in Europe Using Survey Data and MI Techniques

Francesco Solfanelli, Emel Ozturk, Emilia Cubero Dudinskaya, Serena Mandolesi, Stefano Orsini, Monika Messmer, Simona Naspetti, Freya Schaefer, Eva Winter and Raffaele Zanoli ()
Additional contact information
Francesco Solfanelli: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences (D3A), Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Emel Ozturk: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences (D3A), Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Emilia Cubero Dudinskaya: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences (D3A), Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Serena Mandolesi: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences (D3A), Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Stefano Orsini: Organic Research Centre, Trent Lodge, Stroud Road, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 6JN, UK
Monika Messmer: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Ackerstrasse 113, 5070 Frick, Switzerland
Simona Naspetti: Dipartimento di Scienze e Ingegneria della Materia, dell’Ambiente ed Urbanistica (SIMAU), Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Freya Schaefer: FiBL Deutschland, Kasseler Straße 1a, 60486 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Eva Winter: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Ackerstrasse 113, 5070 Frick, Switzerland

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 17, 1-23

Abstract: The lack of sufficient information about organic seed production and use is among the key factors affecting the development of the organic seed market in the EU. Currently, only very basic organic seed market data are being reported at the country level. Those available from each member state are seldom comparable over time between countries and sometimes even within one country. This study provides the first overall statistics on European organic seed supply and demand. Estimates of the organic seed demand and supply of twelve important crops in EU organic agriculture are provided by developing and testing innovative approaches to improve data collection and analysis, such as multiple imputation (MI) techniques to estimate missing values. The estimates are based on data extracted from official EU datasets from 2014 to 2018 and collected by an online survey of 756 farmers, as well as various expert assessments across the EU. The results were provided by four EU geographical regions, with a specific focus on wheat, lucerne, carrot, and apple. Although strong sector and regional differences currently characterise the organic seed market, organic seed demand considerably exceeds supply for most crops. Generally, farms in the central and northern regions revealed a higher organic seed supply than those in the southern and eastern regions, and organic seed supply is higher for wheat than other crops. A significant output of this study is the development of recommendations to improve methodologies to increase the transparency and availability of organic seed market data.

Keywords: organic farming; seeds; supply and demand; certification; missing data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10761/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10761/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:17:p:10761-:d:900855

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().