Focus on market development

Whereas in the past the focus of policy support for organic farming was often production-oriented, the current Danish OAP considers market development (including support for certain marketing channels), promotion and awareness, as well as public procurement, as priorities. The OAP is a mix of push and pull actions. Push effects are meant to increase production, while pull measures aim at increasing the demand for organic products.

 

If we look at the pull measures, a key action was to stimulate the demand for organic products by consumers and in private and public kitchens, such as schools and hospitals. For these activities, 6.4 million EUR were earmarked in the 2015-2018 period.

Municipalities were motivated through a national goal of achieving 60 per cent organic in all public kitchens and by earmarked funds to support the conversion process, primarily through the education of kitchen leaders and workers, and changes in supply chains and menus.

The aforementioned measure was highly successful. For instance, the city of Copenhagen succeeded in developing one of the most ambitious public procurement programmes in Europe, which met the goal of 90 per cent organic food in 2015, without an increase in meal prices.