The influence of market and agricultural policy signals on the level of organic farming

Over the last two decades, organic farming has been one of the few sectors of agriculture to increase exponentially across the world. This paper aims to analyse the relationship of market and agricultural policy signals on the share of organic farming, with a cross-country analysis in two key years (1990 and 2001). Evidence is provided on the importance of public organic agricultural support, organic farming research and development, the availability of marketing and sales outlets for organic produce and countries environmental regulations in positively driving the adoption of organic agriculture by farmers. There seems to be more support for the influence of agricultural policy signals than market signals.