Promoting Organic Food: Information Policy Versus Production Subsidy

Christoph Tribl and Klaus Salhofer

No 24653, 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark from European Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: In developed countries governments aim to increase the market share of organic products. Assuming that organic farming creates a positive externality, we address the question of how this environmental benefit can be internalized best. Using the concept of heterogeneous producers and consumers we compare two policy options to enhance organic supply and demand with respect to their efficiency and distributional effect: First, we analyze the effect of a supply-side oriented policy like a subsidy on organic production. Second, we compare this policy measure to a demand-side oriented information policy, which aims to enhance the acceptance and identification of an organic food label. Third, we assume a mix of both policy measures. The main findings of this paper are that conventional consumers and organic producers and consumers experience a gain in welfare. The efficiency of any policy measure considered strongly depends on the utility enhancement experienced by organic consumers due to an information policy and the costs of transferring the information to the consumer.

Keywords: Agricultural; and; Food; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/24653/files/cp05tr01.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: PROMOTING ORGANIC FOOD: INFORMATION POLICY VERSUS PRODUCTION SUBSIDY (2004)
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:ags:eaae05:24653

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.24653

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark from European Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().