This paper describes the Italian and German organic certification systems, including the institutions involved and the definitions of non-compliance and sanctions. Although they are both implementations of the same EU regulatory framework, these systems differ in many respects. Case study data...

This article introduces a special section in Food Policy that discusses organic certification systems. Among the various issues in this field, the three articles in this special section address (i) the determinants of farmers’ decisions regarding whether to utilise organic production practices...

Organic food markets substantially rely on a reliable control system. To identify and isolate the effect of different factors potentially influencing the uniform implementation of organic controls, we apply a stepwise estimation of different logit models. Using control data of German farms from...

Basierend auf Daten einer deutschen und einer Schweizer Kontrollstelle wird das Risiko des Auftretens von Verstößen gegen die EU-Ökolandbauverordnung bzw. gegen den Bio Suisse-Standard ökonometrisch untersucht. Ausgehend von der Economics of Crime-Theorie werden zunächst Hypothesen zu...

Applying the economics of crime theory, we model the decision of an opportunistic and/or careless organic farmer and derive hypotheses to explain noncompliance. Where empirical data are available, hypotheses are tested. We use data for the years 2007 through 2009 of organic farms certified by...

Replaced with revised version of paper 09/29/09.