Challenges in French organic
vegetables production
A case study of four French producers.
BACHELOR PROJECT
THESIS WITHIN: Business Administration NUMBER OF CREDITS: 15 ECTS
PROGRAMME OF STUDY: Double degree program AUTHOR: BODET Mathilde & MONTAZEL Albane JÖNKÖPING: 05 – 2020
Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration
Title: Challenges in French organic vegetables production
Authors: BODET Mathilde & MONTAZEL Albane
Tutor: Katrine Sonnenschein
Date: 18 May 2020
Key Terms: Organic farming, vegetables, French producers, challenges
Abstract
Organic farming is a new way of producing that is more and more democratised. But in order to produce in an organic way, producers have to follow some rules well defined. Through this research we wanted to highlight the particular case of vegetables producers in France, as it is the second largest organic market of the European Union. French producers of vegetables are facing challenges that are staying sometimes without answers, especially because of a loss of resource on this domain in constant evolution. This study shows the major challenges faced by French producers into the vegetables production. To lead the study, we have interviewed local and small-scale French producers of vegetables and done a thematic map in order to analyse in depth the major challenges faced, and the solution is found. All the producers interviewed have chosen to produce organic vegetable rather than conventional one for ideological motivations. Challenges faced by French producers of vegetables are not all possible to be solved by the producers himself. For some challenge’s producers have to adapt themselves with certain conditions, for other challenges they can find solution to turn the issue as an advantage.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank all the people who contributed to the success of this research and who helped us to write this report.
Thank you to my thesis tutor, Mrs Katrine Sonneschein for her follow up during our research, the time spent together and the sharing of his expertise on our paper
Thank you to Aurélie Durand, François-Xavier Montbardon, Sébastien Bruand and Alexandre Brejean for the time they gave us during interviews and their help in our research.
Thank you to Maxence de Montecler, Iris Atesci, Laurence Smitc and Clémence Montazel for the time spend to read and correct our text.
Table of content Erreur ! Signet non défini. 1. Introduction 5 1.1 Research Question 6 1.2 Purpose 6 2. Literature review 7 2.1 Organic farming 7 2.2 Producers 9 2.3 Supply chain 10 3. Research philosophy 12 4. Research design 14 4.1 Data collection 14 4.2 Data analysis 16
5. Reliability of the research 18
5.1 Research biases 19 6. Results 20 6.1 Ideologic 21 6.2 Environmental 24 6.2.1 The Weather 24 6.2.2 The Water 25 6.2.3 The Overproduction 26
6.2.4 The Field preparation 27
6.2.5 Diseases and pests 28
6.2.6 Neighbours distance 28 6.3 Legal 30 6.4 Economic 33 7. Conclusion 36 7.1 Discussion 36 7.2 Critique of method 37 7.3 Recommendations 37 8. List of references 38 9. Appendices 43
9.1 Appendix 1 - Producers summary 43
9.3 Appendix 3 - Interviews transcriptions 45
9.3.1 Interview with Aurélie Durand 45
9.3.2 Interview with François Xavier Montbardon 52
9.3.3 Interview with Sébastien Bruand 61
1. Introduction
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In this part we are going to present the terms and subjects necessary to understand the study This preliminary presentation introduces the broader context of the research and problem.
___________________________________________________________________________ Nowadays we are facing the emergence of new environmental challenges as climate change and global warming. The environment is mainly affected by the way humans produce to meet their necessities. For example, to feed them and meet their necessities or more, humans add products on fields to produce more vegetables at any season. Food is vital for human well-being, and over generations the food demand increase considerably due to population growth.(Pardillo Baez, Y., Sequeira, M., Hilletofth, P., & Andersson, R. (2019)).
To meet population needs the food industry is able to produce massively even if it is still insufficient. Indeed, the conventional food industry can produce large quantities of food, but they cannot assure a high quality of the food produced. Therefore, people are becoming more and more aware about those dilemmas, this is the reason why some persons are changing the way they consume. Indeed, since the beginning of the century, new trends have emerged, and people are looking to consume locally and higher quality food, such as the organic food (Hassan, D., Monier-Dilhan, S., Nichèle, V., & Simioni, M. (2009)).
Supermarkets and advertising highlighted all the benefits that this new method of consuming and producing has. Through promoting it, they encourage small- and large-scale farming to preferred direct market. The food safety has becoming since the 90s’ a priority for a large number of consumers and farmers. Producing and buying locally reduce the environmental and agricultural impact, it also reduces the avoid the mileage food problem that we can face when producing through the conventional supply chain (Hamzaoui-Essoussi, L., & Zahaf, M. (2012)).
Organic development and consumer behaviour are interesting subjects to study, but media and companies almost never focus on the drawbacks and challenges that producers can have to face (Milestad, R., & Darnhofer, I. (2003)). That is why into this research, we decided to highlight and focus on the farmers and producers’ point of view. By studying the challenge’s producers can have to face to produce food with a higher quality, and, the kind of solutions they found to face the challenges in the upstream food supply chain.
1.1 Research Question
How do French producers of organic vegetables face challenges within the upstream supply chain?
1.2 Purpose
Throughout this research we are focusing on the producer point of view in the organic farming. We studied and defined major challenges organic food producers can face when producing fresh vegetables. It means that looking at all challenge’s producers can have to face, we decided to highlight the most important ones, the ones that producers refers the most. In order to conduct this study more efficiently we decided to only look at French producers of organic vegetables.
We studied only one part of the supply chain, the upstream part because the production of vegetables is part of the upstream supply chain, and downstream depends of the good management of the upstream. In other words, we looked at every part from the organic seed research, the field preparation, the plantation and every step until the vegetable is ready to be picked up. In fact, every step that is related and has a direct impact on vegetable production.
We looked at every challenge that producers can face through each one of those processes and how they are dealing with it. In our study we didn’t looked to find only one solution to a specific problem, but we are rather looking to find different solutions for the same problem.
2. Literature review
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The literature review aims to provide an overview of already existing research and a subject and identified a research gap.
___________________________________________________________________________ Since the beginning of the 90s’, in the agricultural industry we can observe that the organic market is progressively moving from a niche to a mainstream market. This means that organic food products are taking a larger place in the agri-food industry (Hamzaoui-Essoussi, L., & Zahaf, M. (2012)).
2.1 Organic farming
In Europe the organic agriculture has expanded rapidly mainly due to the fact that the European Union (EU) put in place a wide legislation which took effect at the beginning of the 90s’ (Naspetti, S., Lampkin, N., Nicolas, P., Stolze, M., & Zanoli, R. (2011)). Since the European Union wide legislation took effect at the beginning of the 1990s, organic agriculture has expanded rapidly.
In fact, the European Union defines the organic production as “an overall system of farm management and food production that combines best environmental practices, a high level of biodiversity, the preservation of natural resources and the application of high animal welfare standards.” (The European Parliament (2019)). Some of the key principles of the organic farming are the ban of the use of chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and a crop rotation for an efficient use of resources. In other words, it is an agricultural method that aims to respect the environment and animal welfare, including every stage of the food supply chain. Each stage of the organic food production is being controlled and certified (Hamzaoui-Essoussi, L., & Zahaf, M. (2012)). All those characteristics aims to develop specificities like soil fertility (Jouzi, Z., Azadi, H., Taheri, F., Zarafshani, K., Gebrehiwot, K., Van Passel, S., & Lebailly, P. (2017)) or even biodiversity in order to prevent possible future problems of pests or disease (Niggli, U. (2015)). Moreover, organic producers of vegetables have to respect certain norms such as the use of organic seeds which is well regulated (Renaud, E.N.C., Bueren, E.T.L., & Jiggins, J. (2016)) and have its own database in each EU country (EU Organic Seed Databases). Nevertheless, there is still some references of organic seeds that are missing compare to the conventional farming even with the sector evolution (Barbieri, P., & Bocchi, S. (2015)). That
is why, governments and EU have put in place the possibility to use alternatives (with derogations) such as untreated seeds when organic ones are not available (IFOAM EU (2019)).
The expansion of the organic sector in Europe has been backed by the introduction of the European Commission (EC) regulation 2078/91 and the European Union granted financial support for conversion and organic production (David, C., Mundler, P., Demarle, O., & Ingrand, S. (2010)). Those regulations and subventions help conventional farmers who would like to transform their production into an organic one. But also, to help people with an agriculture formation to develop their own organic farm (European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018). Indeed, labelling and certification system for organic food products; it is used by the European Union as tools to improve the market and distribution development. It creates trust and confidence for consumers and assure them and producers/farmers a certain production standard. (Hamzaoui-Essoussi, L., & Zahaf, M. (2012)). However, some articles and communities still questioning the benefits of organic agriculture compared to conventional agriculture (Hoefkens, C., Vandekinderen, I., De Meulenaer, B., Devlieghere, F., Baert, K., Sioen, I., & Van Camp, J. (2009)).
In France this kind of strategy had an impact on the organic food market as it is the second largest in Europe; followed by the UK and Italian markets as per Lavinia Dovleac in an overview on the supply chain for European organic food market. Of course, as said earlier, through all those certifications, consumers are more aware of what they consume and products they buy. Nevertheless, as people are more and more looking to consume organic products usually for health or environmental reasons. (Hamzaoui-Essoussi, L., & Zahaf, M. (2012)). The French organic food market represented a 9.1% growth rate between 2011-2015 and according to the forecast the 2015-2020 should stay in the same growth. Looking deeper between 2011-2015 the fruits and vegetables had a 16.5% share considering every category of the organic food market (Organic Food Industry Profile: France. (2016)). This phenomenon also has an impact on agricultural farmers.
2.2 Producers
Seeing all this market possibility farmers began to develop organic farms. Some actual farmers or producers kept a part of their production as conventional and just added or transform another party to do organic farming, instead others just switched completely from a conventional to an organic production. But in France we can observe through our interviews that some people (who sometimes doesn’t have any agricultural formations), are beginning a completely new activity by creating their own organic farm. Those farmers become to be defined as a new range of producers: organic farmers or producers. The aim of an organic producer is to prevent possible problems rather than reacting to them once it happened; as a conventional producer can do (Coleman, P., (2012)). However, each producer adopts different strategies and it is possible to divide them into two different groups (Milestad, R., &
Darnhofer, I. (2003)), according to two different strategies highlighted. When looking deeper
a supply chain of organic vegetables, farmers are the first step as they produce the vegetables and they have difficulties such as weather constraints which affect cultivation and productivity and problem like pests on culture as organic farmers prefer to use environmentally friendly materials or manual techniques instead of chemicals pesticides (Chusnatul U.S., Budi S., & Djoko K. (2018)).
The first group of organic producers regroups, producers who are producing a large variety of product, selling them directly to the consumer and without any labels, their sales are based on their local reputation. On the other hand, organic producers grow up large quantities of less vegetables, they are closer to an industrialized food system, searching for labels and larger markets. This second group of producers is more likely to have organic labels to sell their product easily on longer distances.
The differences between the two groups is highly present all along the supply chain, but the heart of organic production happens in the upstream supply chain, when studying the way how goods grown up.
2.3 Supply chain
Supply chain is “a network of partner who collectively convert a basic commodity (upstream) into a finished product (downstream) that is valued by end-customers and who manage returns at each stage”, according to Alan Harrison, Remko Van Hoek and Heather Skipworth, in their book Logistics Management and Strategy : Competing through the supply chain.
Supply chain management in some sectors, especially in the agri-food sector needs to be at the forefront. Indeed, agri-food sector, especially vegetables represents a lever of the national economy. Its perishable and sensitive aspect makes it dependent on flawless logistics. The main challenge for agri-food sector nowadays is to produce always more to nourish and respond to the demand of an increasing number of customers with less space to cultivate. This increasing demand has a direct pressure effect on food supply chain. Indeed, growing vegetables in Europe is a real asset for companies because no other sector will face as many demands from growing world population as the food industry (except the energy industry). The conventional food supply chain starts with farms, ranch, fishery or other providers of agricultural products, then items are sold to intermediaries (brokers, distributors or wholesalers…) or are manufactured and processed before going to retailers. Then goods are sent to food service commercial and non-commercial and finally to the customer,
depending on consumer requirements, the way from farms to customer can vary (Pullman M.,
& Wu Z., (2012)).
In the research we looked at an organic supply chain, the organic sector which is mainly based on local distribution, short supply chain and specialised organic shops (Orsini, S., Padel, S., Gambelli, D., Lernoud, J., Sanders, J., Solfanelli, F., … & Zanoli, R. (2019)). According to Mangan, J., Lalwani, C. & Butcher, T. in their book “Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management” the upstream supply chain focus on capacity, inventory level and delivery schedule. It is the part of supply chain closer to the suppliers in comparison to downstream supply chain which is closer to customers. Upstream activities are about primary commodities, raw materials, activities in the upstream part of a supply chain are concerning natural resources exploitation. When downstream activities are more about final commodities, customization and manufacturing they add value to the product (Singer, M., & Donoso, P. (2008)). The upstream food supply chain starts with the acquisition of raw materials from suppliers, then the culture of vegetables and finally the manufacture of the product to get a finish product. Nevertheless, in conventional supply chain is it shown that
farmers earn the smallest margin compare to other actors and that the price received by farmers are mainly determined by traders. However, in organic supply chain farmers have the possibility to sell their products directly from the farm to the consumer, which allow them to get a highest margin and price is more related to the efforts made by the farmer. According to the value chain, if we look at obstacles faced by each actors the farmer is constantly improving his knowledge, skills, development of cultivation of organic vegetable production (Harmawati H. (2018)). Looking specifically at the management of a vegetable supply chain has specificities such as the fact that vegetables are rotten and damaged easily, they mainly depend on weather and climate conditions, they vary on shapes and sizes which also make transport harder (Chusnatul U.S., Budi S., & Djoko K. (2018)).
From “An overview on the supply chain for European organic food market”, the most important reasons to use organic products for clients are human health and environmental sustainability, in terms of food safety, agricultural practices, pesticide free crops, and animal welfare. As observed in the literature, most publications and articles highlighted the positive impact of organic food on population (Milestad, R., & Darnhofer, I. (2003)). However, a major part of the studies concerning organic food, have been done about consumer behaviour, their motivation to buy and consume organic food. Indeed, not a lot of studies and researches have been made about the farmer point of view in the organic food process (Kucukvar, M., & Samadi, H. (2015)). As explained before some studies have been done about the kind of producers who produce organic food (Milestad, R., & Darnhofer, I. (2003)). Today we know what organic food is, and its major principles of production (European Parliament (2019)). However, academic papers published are not studying the way farmers are facing the production challenges (Naspetti, S., Lampkin, N., Nicolas, P., Stolze, M., & Zanoli, R. (2011)).
The gap highlighted in the literature studied is the challenges and studies concerning organic vegetables production. More specifically the difficulties and challenges that producers can face when producing organic vegetables but also solution found to overcomes those difficulties (Hamzaoui-Essoussi, L., & Zahaf, M. (2012)). Gap in literature is especially more highlighted concerning challenges in the upstream supply chain (Kucukvar, M., & Samadi, H. (2015)). Moreover, after our discussion with interviewed producers we noticed that some challenges were usually the same, but the solutions found by each producers were sometime different. Some of them also told us that they didn’t had any real help to find the more convenience solutions apart the one from other producers.
3. Research philosophy
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This chapter aims to present the methodology of the research, concepts and theories used to answer the research question.
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Interpretivism is a "research involving an inductive process with a view to providing interpretive understanding of social phenomenon within a particular context." (Collis, J., & Hussey, R. (2013)). For this research, the appropriate paradigm is the interpretivism, data are going to be created by individuals and the goal of the research is to underlie the difficulties faced by organic vegetables producers in France within the upstream supply chain and solutions they found to overcome challenges. Our choice of interpretivism study leads us to collect a large amount of well-defined data. In order to reduce the amount of relevant data for the topic, we decided to focus our research only on the upstream part of the supply chain. Which means in this study from the organic seeds research to the harvest. We decided to focus the research only on this part after having identified the actual gap in knowledge and literature.
To develop this research, we used the conventional dimension with a rational and deliberative form of reasoning, so the most appropriate approach of this paradigm is the qualitative one. Gummesson (2006) states that a qualitative research approach could be used when a searcher study a complex area in which human activities have critical consequences within a subject area (Naspetti, S., Lampkin, N., Nicolas, P., Stolze, M., & Zanoli, R. (2011)). Johnston (2003) has claimed that quantitative approaches are limited in addressing questions related to complex processes and human perceptions and recommends the use of a qualitative methodology with an interpretive paradigm instead in order to focus deeper on the data. This definition helps us to lead our research through a qualitative rather than a quantitative one. As stated, before the purpose of our research is to understand in depth the challenges of organic food producers and their solutions without doing any measurement, that's why the qualitative study is preferable than a quantitative one.
The outcome of our paper is based on a basic research plan to propose a contribution and deeper understanding of knowledge rather than an applied research based on solving a specific issue and developing a new theory. In this case, when we started thinking about our research question, we were searching for an open question, to discuss the challenges rather
than answering yes/no. At the beginning of the research we explored the context in which researches will be made and identify challenges. As we are not focusing on answering a specific problem, the main outcome of the research is a contribution to knowledge on the challenges faced by organic vegetables French producers. Those challenges will be found in articles read and discussions with producers, solutions are going to be adaptable to other organic producers. According to Vogt and Burke Johnson, (2011), "generalizability is the extent to which the research findings (often based on a sample) can be extended to other cases (often a population) or to other setting." This concept can be applied only after a deep understanding of the sample chosen, and an analysis of contextual factors that could influence their challenges even if they are not directly link, for example the region of the producers. Depending on their localisation, producers can find solutions that could not be applied for the same difficulty in other region. In our case, the solutions found, and conclusions could be extent at least to French, small scale producers of organic vegetables. We consider that our research can only be extended to French organic producers because they are all following the same standards to meet the organic label requirement. Indeed, to have the official organic label in France, producers have to accomplish some norms, standards that are the same fixed by the French government and the European Union.
4. Research design
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This part aims to develop the way we applied the methodology to our paper. Starting with data collection and then how we analysed them.
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4.1 Data collection
Our research design is composed of data collection and data analysis, first to start data collection, we have identified the number of cases we wanted to interview, and the type of producers needed to conduct our research. In the case of an interpretivism study we won't use a random sample, but we defined the sample frame most appropriate for our study, as our
population of producers is too high, we have defined a precise sample of four1 of them from
different regions of France. We have chosen to study producers from different regions to get a sample the most representative of French producers. Moreover, we noticed that depending on regions, producers can find different way to face the same challenge. Each region has a climate which will be a very interessant analysis of the way producers adopt their harvest to their region. We have interviewed four producers to get as much as possible point of views but without having too much information to analyse in the short time given to write the paper. To get a representative sample with only few producers interviewed, we focused our study on a specific kind of producer. The interviewed must be a French producer of organic vegetables, with a high variety rather than a large quantity, selling their products locally at a small scale and their principal motivation to produce organic is health and environment. Those motivation are confirmed in an interview with Aurélie Durand, “What are my motives?! My health, for myself and my children…”. The last criteria to select relevant producers is the level of knowledge of the producers, we interviewed only producers who have strong acquaintances on the subject and its context.
Producers with large quantities and less varieties are more comparable to an industrialized food system which is less local and larger scale. Challenges and solutions are going to be different from producers of high variety of vegetables (Milestad, R., & Darnhofer, I. (2003)). In most cases, motivation to produce high variety is more environmental or health, which is different from motivation to produce high quantities. These
1 It was planned to interview more producers but due to the COVID19 crisis we had to adapt our research with the number of
producers who answered. It is important to know that at the time of the research producers were in high season and they were facing a higher demand from French consumers due to the COVID19 situation.
two types of organic producers are too different to study their challenges and way of producing together and compare them, that’s why we focused our thesis only on one type. This precise description of the person that we wanted to interview is necessary to get a literal replication and comparable results between producers. We have contacted a lot of French organic vegetables producers who were answering to the profile we were looking for; though their websites, emails, phone. We received some answers, four of them were positives and conclude to an interview. But for the other producers, they answered us that even if our study and project were interesting to them, they just didn’t had time to consider us to do the interview. During this step is was difficult to contact producers because many of them are not familiar with internet, they have old and very simple website with not updated contacts. To contact producers, we also used the snowball sampling and networking methods, because we are looking for producers who has high experience in the domain of organic production of vegetables. The snowball sampling method consist of asking to the person interviewed if he knows other producers who could be agreeing to discuss with us. To do so, at the end of each interviews we asks to producers if he knows other producers who could be available to help us in our research. The networking method is really close to the snowball sampling however it is more based on our personal network and acquaintance. This has been really useful to confirm the focus on our research, producers told us they have challenges to face, and they will be happy to speak with us about this.
"Under an interpretivism paradigm, interviews are concerned with exploring data on understandings, opinions what people remember doing, attitudes, feelings and the like, that people have in common" (Arksey and Knight (1999)). Before conducting interviews, we clarify which information we wanted to get from the producer. Then we prepared semi structured interviews adapted for each producer. In those preparations we wrote open questions which are preferable to gather more information, the speaker is more able to develop the answer and cannot answer Yes or No for example: "Can you describe us your exploitation?". We also use hypothetical questions, to get a broader response in a specific case, for example “Does your neighbour use pesticides, is there any possibility of contamination by water or air?". The last type of question use is the summary question, to avoid any ambiguity or misunderstood, for example "If I understand well, buying large variety of organic seeds is one of the main challenge for you? ". To ensure qualitative answer and greater understanding we use many probes as "Can you give us example of this?" or " What does this mean?".
For each interview both of us were present, but only one was conducting the discussion. To be sure that all aspects of the subject and all issues are explored, the other one interacts only if she had questions, with an exterior point of view. We have made four interviews with producers. The first interview was with Mrs Aurélie Durand working at “BeeO”, it lasted 17:53 minutes, it was on Monday 2nd of March 2020. She was really available for us and the communication was very clear. Then we interviewed Mr François-Xavier Montbardon form “Le Maraichamps” during 20:08 minutes, it was Tuesday 3rd of March 2020, we add a nice time with him as he was really happy to give us elements to help us on our research. After, we interviewed Mr Sébastien Bruand who is working at “Le jardin bio de Daphné”, during 51:81 minutes on Tuesday 10th of March 2020. This interview was especially interessant as the producer is also president of the market gardeners' union of Charente, however during the conversion we have been cut off few times, but this didn’t affect quality of data of collected. Finally, the last interview has been done with Mr Alexandre Brejean from “Ferme de la Noge”, during 35:45 minutes on Monday 27th of April 2020. This producer took time to answer our questions and raised challenges faced by further producers (Appendix 1).
4.2 Data analysis
With the combination of data from interviews transcription and from academic articles we listed and identified challenges. To sort all challenges identified, we planned to use the thematic map to analyse our qualitative data. Using the thematic analysis has benefits such as its flexibility, and it is sometime referred or framed as a realistic method. Indeed, our research is not built on a special framework or theory, and as we collected a rich, detailed account of data with our interviews this method allowed us to analyse them properly (Braun V. & Clarke V. (2006)) (Appendix 2).
To stay as close as possible to the meaning of data, we used the thematic analysis through a theoretical map. This visual tool is a way of organizing our data which gave us a representation of the relationship between all challenges identified before and highlight main themes of challenges to sort them easily. We also noticed that every challenge and by consequences themes were interdependent. We classified all challenges into main topics and found solutions to each category.
Thematic map gave us three types of themes: At the lowest the basic themes regrouping all challenges identified directly from data collected, linked together to create the organizing themes, which are the main categories of challenges highlighted. Finally, the global theme at the highest level corresponding to the challenges organic producers have to face during the production of their vegetables. The thematic analysis started with identifying the basic themes and finally the global one, though the organizing ones (Attride-Stirling, J. (2001). With an analysis of challenges sorted in main themes it was easier to find parallels and regrouping solutions increased the possible generalization of solution to other producers in France, as it was not a solution to a unique issue.
With data from all our different sources we went through 4 steps: comprehension, synthesizing, theorizing and recontextualizing. Comprehension of the context of the research, we watched many documentaries on how to grow up organic vegetables, we read articles and were familiar with literatures about our subject before starting. Synthesizing have been realized through our thematic map where challenges from all our sources are going to be sort into main categories, in this process less relevant challenges for our subject have been removed to reduce the amount of data collected. Theorizing have been used to give a structure to our data and confront them with other sources. The theoretical map explained before provided us few categories of challenges by making links between data, then we tried to link those categories and issues to theories found in articles. Finally, the recontextualization requires the extend of solutions found for our cases to general organic producers of vegetables, trying to generalize our findings.
As we have chosen an interpretivism study, data collected have been our base for redaction, we used many quotes from interviews and articles found.
5. Reliability of the research
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The reliability of the research highlight the accuracy of our research and the bias identified during the study to take in consideration before reading the results.
___________________________________________________________________________ Joppe (2000) defines reliability as “the extent to which results are consistent over time and an accurate representation of the total population under study is referred to as reliability and if the results of a study can be reproduced under a similar methodology, then the research instrument is considered to be reliable.” This definition highlight 3 main conditions for a reliable study, at first the repeatability of the study, if the study had to be made by other person with the same sources as us, results would be the same. Then, the stability of results on long term, and finally the similarity of analysis and a specific time.
All the conclusions we made from interviews should be explained or understood with articles or other professionals, words of one person cannot be considered as sure data. We had to ensure that our interviewers were representative of the majors organic French producers. Our research is also based on different sources (articles, websites, interviews…), we defined few rules to ensure the credibility of our final research. Organic production is a new trend since the beginning of the century, so articles, norms and regulations are evolving rapidly, that’s why we have chosen to use only recent articles (M2 Presswire & Coventry).
For this paper we used official websites, especially to find values about our topic or primary information’s. To ensure the credibility of the research we paid attention to choose only official websites with approve sources. For example, we used European website as laws for organic agriculture are set up at the European level, the French government site where we found information about helps producers can have at the beginning of their activity. Concerning websites, we also used websites of each producers interviewed (when available), to get information about their activity and contact them. In addition, we have also looked at possible previous interviews done by producers to newspaper or radio, to react on it like we have done in our interview with Sébastien Bruand.
5.1 Research biases
To reduce biases in data source, we used triangulation as much as possible, to validate each information written in the final paper and ensure credibility of our research. For each challenge identified in interviews we are using data triangulation and are looking for another producer speaking about it or an article mentioning it. As a group of authors of two for this paper we also paid attention to the investigator triangulation, both of us collected data on our own side on then we compared the results. As our research requires more than one method of data collection, we used the methodological triangulation to follow the same paradigm for all data collected. This allowed us to write a reliable paper and have a broader point of view and explanations on a challenge.
In the methodology philosophy and design described above, we are paying a lot of attention at the credibility and viability of our research. Even through the rules establish above, we are aware of some biases in our data collection method. The main is concerning the fact that farmers interviewed gave us different point of views on the organic production and we interviewed only four producers out of the all French producers. This leads to questions concerning the generalization of our solutions to other farmers, we didn’t test it and do not know if solutions identified for a producer will function for another one with differing characteristics. With the time given to realize this research of five months, we won’t have enough time to test solutions found and generalized them to other producers to confirm the generalization. During the research we identified challenges producers have to face and then ask them how to do they face those difficulties. This part of our results will be generalized to all French, local, small scale producers of organic vegetables, without test we cannot be sure that it functions. That is why we can only look for generalization to producers who are the most looking to our samples.
To conduct interviews with producers we set up with them time and date when they were available to discuss with us on their exploitation, however sometimes they were not totally concentrated and available. For example, one of the producers interviewed was in his car, another one was with kids, and it can affect their answers and development if they are not fully concentrated on the discussion. Moreover, we don’t know anything about their private life now of the interview which can influence their perception, feelings and behaviour. For example, if the producer learnt good news just before the discussion, he could be over optimistic and vice versa in case of bad news.
According to Joppe (2000) “Validity determines whether the research truly measures that which it was intended to measure or how truthful the research results are.” Validity in our thesis is respected as our main objective is to answer as correctly as possible our research question.
6. Results
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In this part develop the result of the analysis of data collected, the main goal is to answer the research question through an deep analysis.
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Using the thematic analysis method help us to identified and manage all challenges found during data collection part, in articles and interviews. We sorted challenges that producer of organic vegetables has to manage in four categories: ideologic, environmental, legal and economic. In each paragraph we are going to detailed challenges identified and propose solutions for producers.
6.1 Ideologic
With the thematic map analysis, we highlighted two main directions in the ideological party, the reasons of producing and then specials relations and mutual helps between producers. Firstly, the reasons of producing organic product is the motivation that push the producer to grow organic vegetables rather than conventional one. Our research sample is based on farmers who have chosen to cultivate organic vegetables because of personal convictions and ideology. As Mrs Durand from “BeeO” said in her interview when she
answered the question “What are your main motivations for producing organic products”?2
by “My health already for me already, for others, for my children…”.3 The idea that organic
production is not a constraint but a personal choice is confirmed by Mr Alexandre Brejean “For us, organic farming is not a constraint, it's a choice, it's a choice of production, to produce while respecting the, the life of the soil and without using phytosanitary
products”.4Mr Francois Xavier Montbardon posit the idea that organic agriculture is better for
him as producer at first “ especially already to have a good product for myself already, that I'm eating”.
When producing organic vegetables, producers have to take into consideration that their products may not have an aspect as beautiful as conventional one. However, organic products are better concerning some nutrients and contaminants (Hoefkens, C., Vandekinderen, I., De Meulenaer, B., Devlieghere, F., Baert, K., Sioen, I., & Van Camp, J. (2009)). As Aurelie Durand from the interview said, “organic vegetables are often more beautiful and even better than conventional products”.
Moreover, as organic farming is the prohibition of pesticides and non-natural fertilizers it is a better way of production for the environment. As Mr Alexandre Brejean said “we still do a lot of things that are positive for the environment and people's health”.5 The
idea that organic vegetables are better for health and for environment are the main reasons for producers studied to produce organic. As Mr Montbardon said in his interview “I often have more than what they ask for in terms of standards.6”, this involve that he does not produce organic vegetables to get the organic label and recognition but also by convictions. He prefers
2 “Quelles sont vos principales motivations pour produire des produits biologiques ?” From the interview with Aurélie,
working at BeeO.
3 “Ma santé déjà pour moi déjà, pour les autres, pour mes enfants”. From the interview with Aurélie, working at BeeO. 4 “Le bio pour nous ce n’est pas une contrainte c’est un choix, c’est un choix de production, de produire en respectant les, la
vie du sol et en se passant de produits phytosanitaires”. From the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
5 “Nous faisons déjà beaucoup de choses qui sont positives pour l'environnement et la santé des gens”. From the interview
with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
6 “J’ai souvent plus que ce qu’ils demandent au point de vue normes”. From the interview with François Xavier, working at
used as little as possible of products to help growth rather than using more product to get vegetables bigger and quicker.
Producing organic vegetables for ideological reasons and convictions, give a sense to everyday work as Mr Bruand said in his interview “Then we wanted to do it because we needed to make sense of the work we were doing and so on. So organic farming is a logical
consequence of this”.7 We observed that each producer interviewed were producing organic
vegetables in family exploitations around their house, that leads to the idea that their crops and production are completely part of their life. As mentioned by Mr Francois Xavier his family helps him “we have family labour, there are the children who help me and then my father who does all the accounting and all the secretarial work.” Contrary to an industrialized food production, where the main goal is to earn more money and all products allowed are used to produce quicker and in larger quantities (Milestad, R., & Darnhofer, I. (2003)). For this type of producers, organic production is also a way to limit waste and use all vegetables grown, even the one less beautiful are a bit overripe. As said by Mr Montbardon “ To allow for anti-waste, all vegetables that aren't pretty or rotten are allowed to be peeled and passed when they would otherwise go in the trash”.8 Once producers choose to grow organic
vegetable for ideological reasons, all aspects of the “organic” word have to be taken into consideration, including waste handling and the relation with other producers in the same region. The idea of organic production is completely confirmed by Mr Brejean in his interview as when he has overproduction he gave it to a charity, “if it's a vegetable that we can store and we store it or we look for a customer or we give it to a charity”.9
Then, the special relation between producers, networks and associations of producers are more developed than for conventional producers. Mr Alexandre Brejean said that he is part of many organisations “Yes we are a member of the GAB, you are a member of the chamber of agriculture, you are a member of the farmers' confederation. Yes we are in several networks, we have a very good understanding with our close colleagues whether conventional or organic farmers; yes we wouldn't farm alone”!10 Mutual assistance is a concept mention by each producers interviewed in the case of this research. As Mr Sébastien
7 “Puis on voulait le faire voilà aussi pour un besoin de sens par rapport au travail qu’on faisait etc. Donc là-dessus
l’agriculture bio c’est imposé logiquement”. From the interview with Sébastien, working at Le Jardin bio de Daphné.
8 “Pour permettre de faire de l’anti-gaspillage, tous les légumes qui ne sont pas jolis ou pourris ca nous permet d’éplucher et
de passer alors que sinon il partiraient à la poubelle”. From the interview with François Xavier, working at Le Maraichamps.
9 “C’est un légume qu’on peut stocker et on le stock ou on cherche un client ou on donne à une association”. From the
interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
10 “Oui on est adhérent au GAB, on est adhérent à la chambre d’agriculture, on est adhérents à la confédération paysanne.
Oui on est dans plusieurs réseaux, on a une très bonne entente avec nos collègues proches que ce soit des paysans conventionnels ou des paysans bio ; oui on ne ferait pas de l’agriculture tout seul !” From the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
Bruand said during his interview “We immediately became members of the network of producers, the “Maison de l'Agriculture Bio”, which brings together all organic producers in
the Charente and we also have a departmental union of market gardeners.”11
External institutions are very useful for producers concerning knowledge and
expertise. To avoid any type of dependence on external institutions, farmers created
corporations and network of organic farmers to exchange information and create common initiatives (Milestad, R., & Darnhofer, I. (2003)). Mr Alexandre Brejean spoke about evolution concerning knowledge on organic production “It's going in the right direction, and then there's a lot of conventional farmers trying to work their land well who are putting fairly little pesticide on their soil and thinking about it.12” Producers that are producing organic vegetables for ideological reasons have the volunteer to continuously improve their knowledge on organic production and vegetables. As Mr Montbardon said in his interview 10 years ago when he starts his exploitation, he had almost no knowledge on organic topic. It takes him 10 years to be really updated concerning organic vegetables and production. Moreover, as we see in the literature, nineteen years ago organic production was a really new concept without literature, the scarcity of existing literature becomes obsolete very quick as norms and concept evolving rapidly. “Well there is a big evolution to be made but then we can hope that the organic market develops, that it pulls the productions and that we arrive at
more organic fertilizers that can be valorised in organic agriculture”.13 As confirmed by Mr
Brejean, this sector is still in high evolution, there is still many innovation to found in order to improve the organic production “in the sense that agriculture will always be in constant research and evolution,”.
As organic production is directly link to environment, norms are evolving very quickly to stay updated, however biological and environmental aspect are always the heart of discussions.
11 “On a été tout de suite adhérents des réseaux de producteurs; donc la maison de l’agriculture bio; qui regroupe l’ensemble
des producteurs bio de Charente et on a aussi au niveau départemental un syndicat des maraîchers”. From the interview with Sébastien Bruand, working at Le Jardin bio de Daphné.
12 “Ce va dans la bonne direction, et puis il y a beaucoup d'agriculteurs conventionnels qui essaient de bien travailler leurs
terres et qui mettent assez peu de pesticides sur leur sol et y réfléchissent.” From the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
13 “Ah bah il y a une grande évolution a faire mais après on peut espérer que le marché du bio se développe, que ça tire les
productions et que l’on arrive à plus d'engrais organique bio qui puisse être valorisé en agriculture bio”. From the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
6.2 Environmental
When it comes to organic production of vegetables, the environmental question is always coming into discussions. Indeed, organic producers are facing a lot of their challenges within this part as they meanly depend of it. Growing organic vegetables requires producers to perform with their production techniques. In our discussion with Mr Bruand he argues saying that: “it's a crop that needs to have farmers who are technically better”.14
For instance, one of the challenges we identified that they are facing regarding it, is the weather.
6.2.1 The Weather
In fact, producers cannot do anything against the weather, or at least not a lot. The weather is something that producers cannot control, they have to anticipate it or to adapt their production according to it. In the “BeeO” interview, Mrs Durant the producer told us that she couldn't do the field preparation due to weather issues: "It's raining, I should have planted my
peas two weeks ago but I can't because I can't work the land”.15 However, weather is also one
of the good advantage of organic farming, because crops are outside. They grow under the sun and rain, planted on soil and bring good nutrient to vegetables, which is not always the case with the conventional. Producers have to wait the best moment to do something on their lands according to the weather; they cannot work on their fields whenever they want as she confirmed with “It's the weather that gives us the green light to do things or not”.16
The weather is a parameter with the one organic producer have to work every day, and it depends also from each region. In France, the weather will not be the same for a producer from the north and one from the south for instance. Mrs Durant gave us some of her
owns examples: “the first three years we were in a drought”17 and “we're in an area where it's
still pretty much frozen, uh, to holy ice”.18 This also argue that according to the region where
they are in France they can have different challenges and producers have to adapt the kind of products they choose and their way of producing. Furthermore, in the article Sustainability of
14 “C’est une culture qui nécessite d’avoir des agriculteurs qu’y soient meilleurs techniquement”. From the interview with
Sébastien Bruand, working at Le Jardin bio de Daphné.
15 “Il pleut, ca fait 15 jours que j’aurai dû planter mes petits pois mais je ne peux pas parce que je ne peux pas travailler la
terre”. From the interview with Aurélie Durand, working at BeeO.
16 “C’est la météo qui nous donne le feu vert pour pouvoir faire les choses ou pas”. From the interview with Aurélie Durand,
working at BeeO.
17 Les trois premières années nous on était en sécheresse”. From the interview with Aurelie Durand, working at Bee. 18 “On est dans une région ou ca gèle encore pas mal euh jusqu'aux saintes glaces”. From the interview with Aurélie Durand,
organic food production: challenges and innovations it is stated that due to climate change which is affecting the earth, the weather will be less and less predictable and this will add a higher difficulty to producers, as it will be harder to anticipate it.
6.2.2 The Water
In Charentes for instance, a lot of producers have irrigation problems, as Mr Bruand told us “The problem of irrigation is quite often found on farms in the Charente i.e. they have access to water but ... it's either not enough or not very suitable”.19 Moreover, Mr Brejean from the “Ferme de la Noge” added that “Water is the major part of the difficulties we
encounter and will encounter in the decades to come”.20 For him and the farm “The challenge
is to ensure the sustainability of this resource”.21 Indeed, the unsalted water is a resource that will miss in the future and in some regions producers can meet problems such as soil fertility or water problems which restricted food production (Jouzi, Z., Azadi, H., Taheri, F., Zarafshani, K., Gebrehiwot, K., Van Passel, S., & Lebailly, P. (2017)). However, even if it is not easy to control this problem producers reflect about the kind of solutions they could adopt. For instance, Mr Brejean told us “We are thinking with other producers to create a
basin so that we can have a sufficient water resource during the period of need”.22 He told us
about different strategies that they are using: “there's another technique is to save water, so it's true that for the moment we're on sprinklers”23 and that they will probably use such as “drip in the open field to limit the amount of water”24 and “the adaptation of cultivation
techniques that will limit the need for water”.25
19 “Le problème d’irrigation qui se retrouve assez souvent sur les fermes charentaises c’est-à-dire que ils ont un accès à l’eau
mais … dire qui est soit pas suffisant soit pas très adapté”. From the interview with Sébastien Bruand, working at Le Jardin bio de Daphné.
20 “L’eau c’est la majeure partie des difficultés qu’on rencontre et que on va rencontrer dans les dizaines d’années à venir”.
From the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
21 “L’enjeu est de pérenniser cette ressource”. From the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge. 22 “On est en train de réfléchir avec d’autres producteurs pour créer un bassin pour pouvoir avoir une ressource en eau
suffisante pendant la période de besoin”. From the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
23 “Il y a une autre technique c’est économiser l’eau alors c’est vrai que pour l’instant on est sur de l’aspersion”. From the
interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
24 “Faire du goutte-à-goutte dans le plein champ pour limiter les quantités d’eau”. From the interview with Alexandre
Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
25 “L’adaptation des techniques cultural qui vont limiter le besoin en eau”. From the interview with Alexandre Brejean,
6.2.3 The Overproduction
One of the other difficulty producers have to face and related to the weather is the seasonal product. Sometime all vegetables of one variety ripped at the same time and lead to overproduction. For instance, Mr Bruand from “Le jardin bio de Daphné” said that for them the zucchini is the most difficult vegetable to control for this problem as they have a huge overproduction at a moment into the season: “The zucchini has a very important production
peak at a given time”.26 However, producers are always looking to avoid overproduction, to
avoid throwing away a part of their production when they can. This is also lead with ideological principles as one of their motivation to do organic farming is also environmental and producers advocate an anti-waste food production. Mr Montbardon from “Le Maraichamps” added that he sometime does not sell all his production at the local market as it is the way he sells them: “All the vegetables that aren't sold, back from the market”.27
Producers cares a lot about overproduction, they anticipate it or they also organize it with the way they sell their vegetables. To avoid overproduction, they found solutions such as transformation, which mean that a part of the production that they cannot sell is sold on preserving jar, this allow them to sell their products later on. Such as Mr Montbardon “We do
a lot of preserving jar, it's because we always have surplus production”.28 Others producers
instead of doing preserving jar or to throw away their production have chosen to change the way they sell their products as it is not that easy for some crops to solve the problem before the production. For instance, those who are selling their product through baskets put a little bit more products than usually, others have chosen to sell the overproduction to organic shops or also to school. This is the case of Mr Bruand “or we transform it, we also send a bit to the
Bio Coop or we will send surplus to a school”.29 In the case of Mr Brejean he confessed that
he sometime calls associations to harvest vegetables “They come and they collect them from me, they make space for me and then they help people in need, so everybody wins”.30 He
added that he couldn’t take the time to harvest vegetables if he knows that he will not sell them, that is why he ask associations/persons to come them self to harvest: “while I'm
26 “La courgette a un pic de production très important à un moment donné.” From the interview with Sébastien Bruand,
working at Le Jardin bio de Daphné.
27 “Tous les légumes qui ne sont pas vendus, au retour du marché”. From the interview with François Xavier Montbardon,
working at Le Maraichamps.
28 “On conserve beaucoup, c’est parce qu'on a toujours des surplus de production”. From the interview with François Xavier
Montbardon, working at Le Maraichamps.
29 “Soit on le transforme, on l’envoie aussi un peu à la bioCoop où on va envoyer des surplus justement à une école”. From
the interview with Sébastien Bruand, working at Le Jardin bio de Daphné.
30 “Ils viennent ils me les récoltent, moi ça me fait de la place et puis ça rend service à des gens qui sont dans le besoin donc
spending time harvesting salads and putting them in crates to give to the food bank I'm not producing... I am failing in the following cultures”.31
6.2.4 The Field preparation
Related to the environmental aspect of the organic production, the field problem is part of it. Indeed, in order to respect organic norms, producers have to respect a special preparation of their fields. Before beginning the production of vegetables, they are supposed to do a conversion of the field from conventional to organic one (if the field was cultivated in conventional production just before). It means that the producer should keep the field follow for some years according to each situation, as Aurelie told us on her interview: “it took three
years before we moved in to start the organic conversion”.32 Besides, for vegetable
production, producers have to respect a certain time before producing: 2 years before sowing, for annual crops or semi-perennial, and 3 years before harvest for perennial crops.
Moreover, according to label norms, producers are advised to do some field rotation or/and crop rotation with their production in order to maintain soil fertility (Jouzi, Z., Azadi, H., Taheri, F., Zarafshani, K., Gebrehiwot, K., Van Passel, S., & Lebailly, P. (2017)). It means that the land must be followed for a time (months) or/and that they should not plant the same vegetable variety always at the same place. In the “Le Maraichamps” discussion, Mr Montbardon told us that he was doing it “Always make gaps in the year, which means there's always a time of year when I'm not farming”.33 Mr Brejean said that he takes a certain
advantage of this time “We use these times to work the soil and limit weed, uh, weed
problems”.34 For weeding problems Mr Brejean added some idea of techniques that they use
for their productions “We have rotation techniques, mechanical management techniques, so we can always try to improve on that. That's a big challenge for us, for all organic producers, especially in market gardening”.35 Mr Bruand added that “... at the level of organic
31 “Pendant que je passe du temps à récolter des salades à les mettre dans des cagettes pour les donner à la banque
alimentaire je ne suis pas en train de produire... je ne suis pas en train de réussir les cultures suivantes”. From the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
32 “il a fallu que, 3 ans avant qu’on s'installe que on commence la conversion bio”. From the interview with Aurélie Durand,
working at BeeO.
33 “Fais toujours des vides dans l’année, c’est à dire que il y a toujours une période de l'année ou je cultive pas”. From the
interview with François Xavier Montbardon, working at Le Maraichamps.
34 “On se sert de ces périodes là pour travailler le sol et limiter des problèmes d’adventices, euh de mauvaises herbes”. From
the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
35 “On a des techniques de rotation, de gestion mécanique donc ça on peut toujours essayer de s’améliorer là-dessus ça c’est
un gros challenge pour nous, pour tout ce qui est producteur bio en maraîchage notamment”. From the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
certification there must be ...rotation ...preventive measures precisely for pest diseases...”.36
As it is said the rotation is also one of the solution to avoid pests and diseases problem.
6.2.5 Diseases and pests
Indeed, some diseases can infect vegetables which later have big consequences on the production. That is why producers cannot neglect this part as it is essential. Organic producers are always trying to manage those difficulties, as they cannot use pesticides or almost any, they have to find other solution. One of the solutions found have been the diversity, products diversity; the point is to find the correct combination between pests/ disease and the vegetable. The article Sustainability of organic food production: challenges and innovations also state it saying that biodiversity helps producers to ban pesticides and that often organic growers are using diversification on their field, which mean that they produce several different varieties. The producer Mr Brejean from the “Ferme de la Noge” added that in the case of potato production they use a beetle collector “We have a beetle collector. It's a kind of beetle blower”37 and “a crop protection product called Spinosad active
ingredient Spinosad”.38 Nevertheless, Mr Brejean argues that this last solution is part of
“active ingredients that are decried because they suspect that there may be ... an adaptation of the pests to this type of product”.39 Nevertheless, there are still some impedes “In organic
farming we really have big dead ends on certain pests and diseases and even a relatively balanced environment is not enough to compensate for this, well me in what I practice”.40
added the producer. However, this is not the only difficulty that producers can meet with their field.
6.2.6 Neighbours distance
Actually, when we did the interview with the producer from “Le Maraichamps”, he said that they have to respect a certain distance with neighbours when those ones are not doing organic production: “After, the plots where we have neighbours who have plots that
36 “... au niveau de la certification biologique il faut qu’il y ai ...de la rotation...en mesures préventives justement pour les
maladies ravageur…”. From the interview with Sébastien Bruand, working at Le Jardin bio de Daphné.
37 “On a un collecteur à doryphores c’est une sorte de souffleur à doryphores”. From the interview with Alexandre Brejean,
working at Ferme de la Noge.
38 “Un produit phytosanitaires qui s’appelle le Spinosad matière active Spinosad”. From the interview with Alexandre
Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
39 “Des matières actives qui sont décrié puisque voilà ils soupçonnent justement qu’il puisse y avoir ... une adaptation des
ravageurs à ce type de produit”. From the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
40 “En agriculture bio on a vraiment des grosses impasses sur certains ravageurs et certaines maladies et même un milieu
relativement à l’équilibre ne suffit pas à compenser sa, fin moi dans ce que je pratique”. From the interview with Alexandre Brejean, working at Ferme de la Noge.
