The impact of organic farming on the rural economy in England

(C) Centre for Rural Policy Research. Available from http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/crpr/

All extracts to be acknowledged.

This research sought to explore the hypothesis that organic farming provides an additional benefit to the rural economy over and above that of conventional agriculture, defined for the purposes of this project as "non-organic". The approach adopted involved tracing the socio-economic footprint of a range of farm business types. The concept of the socio-economic footprint represents a development of earlier research tracing the economic footprints of small towns. In contrast to conventional economic analysis, the research focused on examining the socio-economic linkages associated with different types of farming such as sales and purchasing patterns but also evidence of social connectivity and embeddedness.