EU organic food and crop standards

Standards on food products are more and more differentiated at the consumer stage. On one hand, they cover more and more attributes of food products (organic farming, fair trade, GM free, nutrition, origin, environment…). On the other hand, for each attribute several standards are vertically and horizontally differentiated, by being more or less restrictive on this attribute (for example, more or less restrictive specifications on agricultural practices for organic products) and/or by integrating other attributes of the product (for example, fair-trade considerations in an organic standard). Such a standard proliferation allows consumers to benefit from a large choice of products and standard setters to offer products that meet their economic, social or environmental objectives. Yet, it may generate consumer confusion as well as losses from the set-up, management and promotion of each standard. In addition, whether standards are understood or not by consumers and whether their implementation is costly or not, the strategic interaction between standard setters may lead to prices and sales of the different products such that the coexistence of standards may improve or on the contrary deteriorate the targeted dimensions (economic, environmental, social, agricultural, nutritional), in comparison with the case of a unique standard or with a limited number of standards.In this context, we aim to analyze these different dimensions of food standard differentiation, using a case study on the aims, product specifications, modes of certification and retailing networks of organic standards in France. The recognition of organic farming has led to the creation of a public standard at the European level. There also exist a significant number of private organic standards in France, most of them based on the public standard. For the most part they impose more restrictive specifications than the public standard on agricultural practices as well as other dimensions of the food product. Besides, some trademarks include a requirement on the origin of the product without imposing other agricultural practices and mainly target the promotion of local organic farming. We give an overview of this differentiation and discuss its economic implications.