Organics or not? Prospects for uptaking organic farming

Organic farming is the most widespread alternative form of agriculture, widely applied all around the world. Within the last few decades, the cultivation of organic products presented a rising trend, due to consumer preferences for safe products, produced by environmentally friendly procedures. The improvement and development of organic agriculture in the European Union was supported through various agri-environmental programs of the Common Agricultural Policy. The present study surveys the producers' motivation for the adoption of organic farming, highlighting the most important ones. Primary data were obtained through a quantitative survey (structured questionnaire) to a sample offarmers from the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace and were analyzed via multivariate techniques, namely factor analysis and ANOVA. Results indicate that the farmer's decision to implement organic farming is determined by their attitude towards organic farming and to a lesser extent by economic reasons closely related to subsidies.