TIPOS DE IMPARCIALIDAD

In Austrian agricultural policy making in general, there are four main influential actors, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Agriculture Chambers, the co-operatives (united in Raiffeisen Verband) and the AMA (Agrar Markt Austria). All four have been characterised as rather reluctant in their support for organic farming at an early stage of development (s: most interviewees). The Agriculture Chambers in particular and the social partners in general are perceived to be relatively more important in the political process than the parliament. Furthermore, it should be noted that a closed network of the conservative farmers’ association and the

Raiffeisen Co-operatives dominates the chambers. Hence, conservatives have for a long period dominated agriculture policy and their general attitude to organic farming was negative. The change to a positive attitude towards organic farming in the late 1980s seems mainly to be the result of personal efforts by the conservative minister Riegeler who was able to use a wide range of good personal relationships within his party for this purpose (s: agriculture administrator).

The AMA (Agrarmarkt Austria) is charged with two functions. On the one hand, it implements the agricultural commodity support regimes and on the other hand, it organises the marketing of agriculture products. The AMA also carries out these functions for organic farming. AMA is a very important part of agriculture policy and is therefore often called a “second ministry”. The AMA board includes representatives of all four social partners but it is clearly dominated by the Agriculture Chambers that has the right to nominate the members of the advisory boards for the product groups which are in charge of detailed administration (s: organic farmers’ organisation and agriculture administration representatives).

Attitudes have changed during the 1990s and most actors in the ministry and the chambers now support organic farming (s: organic farmers’ organisation and general farmers’ representatives). However, outside of the agriculture sector these official statements are seen as representing a kind of lip service only and they do not always correspond with wide- spread attitudes held among staff in the Ministry. In fact, the view on the potential of organic farming held by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Agricultural Chambers and AMA is rather sceptical towards a policy driven expansion of organic farming as they prefer to focus on stabilising the number of organic farmers and on increasing the role of market demand. Furthermore, the general agriculture interests also emphasise that organic farming has currently reached a limit that can only expand further with the help of the market – not by policy.

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The most important organisations in the development of the organic food market, include the organic producer organisations (particularly Ernte),

the multiple retailers (particularly Billa/Merkur) and regional marketing co-operatives, whereas the otherwise dominant co-operatives (Raiffeisen) have not had any important involvement in this sector.

The main organic umbrella organisation ARGE and its biggest member organisation, Ernte, supported a promotion campaign in 1991, which succeeded in raising the overall profile of organic farming in the Austrian media. The two organisations were also actively involved in the

negotiations involving the first supermarket chain (Billa/Merkur) with organic produce in 1994 and in the organisation of producer co-operation to meet the needs of the market. As already mentioned, Ernte gives its members broad support in marketing their produce and was, alongside five other organic producer organisations, involved in the foundation of a marketing company (Ökoland Vertriebsgesellschaft m.b.H.) in 1996. In a European context, the domestic market share is high and so is the market growth (Michelsen et al. 1999). The markets for organic cereals (approx. 2 per cent of the total food market), potatoes (5-6 per cent) as well as for milk and dairy produce (8-10 per cent) are relatively well developed. The demand for organic produce is at times, and for particular products, out- stripping supply. However, the situation varies considerably between products, e.g. for vegetables and fruit the demand is greater than domestic supply. This also applies for pork and poultry, whereas for beef, domestic supply is larger than domestic demand. Attempts to produce organic “convenience products” have failed, and organic lines of heavily processed food (tins, etc.) have not been successful (s: retail representative).

There are different views on how to explain the problems of the market for organic produce. On the one hand, the Ministry of Agriculture and the regional agriculture chambers tend to attribute problems to consumer behaviour (s: agriculture administrators). The organic sector, on the other hand, points to the resentment of traders and processors, particularly in the co-operative sector, in getting involved in processing, buying and selling organic commodities (s: organic farmers’ organisation and retailer representatives).

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The Role of AThe Role of AThe Role of AThe Role of AMA-MarketingMA-MarketingMA-MarketingMA-Marketing

The AMA is legally charged with marketing support for all Austrian agriculture produce. Every farmer pays a levy and AMA-Marketing has to spend the money according to the financial share of each product. However, as the budget in many sectors is so small that no direct promotional activities for the particular product can be carried out, the major part of AMA’s budget is used for general promotional activities of Austrian agricultural produce. AMA-Marketing has advisory boards for all product groups that are normally composed of representatives from the chambers and co-operatives. The establishment of an organic board by the ministry seems to have been against the wishes of AMA-Marketing (s: agriculture administrator). The organic board is composed of represen- tatives from the organic associations and not from the official chambers.

This composition of the board was a precondition for the ministry to charge the AMA with the organic marketing tasks.

The AMA is also responsible for the administration of the Austrian state label of organic products – Austria-BIO – as it seems that the organic farming organisations appeared largely unable to reach an agreement on administration amongst themselves.

Although AMA-Marketing possesses the required formal competence, it does not do much to market organic products. One reason already

mentioned is the low share of funding generated by organic producers. On the other hand, the organic associations accuse the AMA of not spending the entire organic budget on organic marketing. The organic sector bodies also have problems with the fact that in its promotional activities, AMA- Marketing aims to create a green image for all Austrian food and does not, in their view, emphasise sufficiently the differences between Austria-BIO products and Austrian food in general. Hence, marketing is, to a major extent, left to private actors.

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