Farmers’ Perceptions of the Organic Control and Certification Process in Tyrol, Austria

Organic farming is a demand-led—rather than policy-driven—development. The introduction of regulations, controls and certification was intended to protect consumers from fraud, and to protect producers from unfair competition. The farmers’ willingness to participate in organic schemes is a prerequisite, which depends on their attitudes to the certification process. By means of three focus groups—conducted in April 2019, in Kematen, in the district of Innsbruck-Land—this study attempted to identify Tyrolean farmers’ perceptions of organic certification, as well as the influential factors, with the aim of highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the certification system. Overall, the farmers perceived a great variety of differing standards. In particular, compliance with the regulations on animal husbandry and labelling requirements were seen to be hard to achieve. The farmers felt that the retailers were forcing them to comply with additional requirements, and that they were not receiving adequate support from their control body or their organic farming associations. They stated that the inspectors’ attitudes were often crucial to the control’s outcome, and were negative about the regulations or inspectors that did not reflect their underlying values. More scope should therefore be given for a cultural adaption of the inspection process, and there should be information symmetry between all of the stakeholders within organic certification.