BuddyDev

of their country into the Union.C. Stopes (Eco-Stopes consulting, England) and F. Kirschenmann (Farmer, Président of Farm Verified Organic, the United States) consider current developments and the future of organic in Europe and North America. Kirschenmann is concemed by the recent trend towards rupturing the direct linkages between producers and consumers that has followed the process of industrialisation of the North American transformation and distribution network. In Europe, recent changes seem very similar and are leading to, according to Stopes, two phenomena; spécialisation and standardisation that both run contrary to the principles of organic agriculture.Figure. 1. The gâte keeper rôle of the retailer in the process to promote organic foodIn ail three countries the leading 5 retail chains have a turnover market share of entire food sales of more Bottes Moncler than 60 %, in Switzerland more than 80 % (table 1 ). In Switzerland the main part of the whole organic food volume is sold by the Moncler Homme two retailers COOP and Migros. Above ail, COOP’s strong promotion of organic agriculture made the consumer sensitive to the ecological aspects of agriculture. In Germany and in France the involvement of the retail chains in selling organic food has also started in the last few years. However at present the major retailers are not able to convince many more new consumers to buy organic products.Table 1. The power of the major retail chains to shape the organic marketImportance of the Retail Chains 1997 France Switzerland GermanyMarket Share of Tumorver: Food TOP 5 Retailer 61% 84% 63%Market Share of organic food sold in Retail Chains 38% 57% 26%Otherwise the power of consumer wishes and attitudes to buy organic products in supermarkets can effect a pull situation. Therefore a point of sale consumer survey in super-and hyper-markets Doudoune Moncler as well as in natural food shops in the régions of Northwestern Switzerland, Southwestern Germany and Alsace was made in 1997/98 (2592 Interviews). The aim was to investigate the potential demand and impacts from the consumer side in each country. One of the main results was that in ail three countries there seem to be considérable différences between typical