Building farm resilience: The prospects and challenges of organic farming

The concept of socio-ecological resilience is applied to agricultural systems in general and to the farm level in particular. Resilience has three defining characteristics: the amount of change the system can undergo while maintaining its functions and structures, the degree of self-organization, and the capacity for learning and adaptation. To assess the resilience of a farming system, various elements that can build resilience are identified. Using these elements, the paper assesses organic agriculture using the IFOAM Basic Standard. The analysis shows that organic farming has a number of promising characteristics building resilience. However, when analyzing the current development of organic farming practice in light of the effects of government regulation and market dynamics, there is a danger that this quality is lost. Therefore, conversion alone may not be enough to ensure farm resilience. The ability of organic farming to realize its resilience building potential will depend on the ability of the organic movement to adapt and learn from the current experiences. (C) 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.