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The social construction of production externalities in contemporary agriculture: Process versus product standards as the basis for defining “organic”

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Abstract

The analysis distinguishes two types of standards for defining organic produce; process standards and product standards. Process standards define organic products by the method and means of production. Product standards define organic by the physical quality of the end product. The National Organic Program (NOP) uses process standards as the basis for defining organic. However, the situation is complicated by agricultural production practices, which sometimes result in the migration of NOP prohibited substances from conventional to organic fields. When this interaction alters the value of the product or the costs of production, a production externality is said to exist. Defining organic using process, rather than product standards, influences the burden and character of production externalities. The NOP’s emphasis on process standards reduces the likelihood that production externalities will emerge.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Economics and Business, University of Guelph, Room 321 J.D. Maclachlan Building, Guelph, ON, Canada, NIG 2W1

    B. James Deaton

  2. Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

    John P. Hoehn

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  1. B. James Deaton
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  2. John P. Hoehn
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Correspondence to B. James Deaton.

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B. James Deaton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Business and Agricultural Economics, University of Guelph, Canada. His research examines environmental and natural resource issues. He is particularly interested in the manner in which laws, rules, and standards influence environmental quality, natural resource use, and economic development. Additional research examines the relationship between different forms of private property and economic development, public support for various criteria used to preserve farmland, and the social construction of production externalities in agriculture. Prior to his PhD training, he worked on economic development projects in Lesotho (Southern Africa) and the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky.

John P. Hoehn is a Professor of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University. His teaching and research activities address environmental and natural resource policies, benefit-cost analysis of environmental improvements, methods for valuing non-market goods, improved institutions for protecting, managing, and using environmental resources, and the economics of ecological resources. He teaches core courses in the departmental and university-wide graduate programs in environmental and resource economics.

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Deaton, B.J., Hoehn, J.P. The social construction of production externalities in contemporary agriculture: Process versus product standards as the basis for defining “organic”. Agric Hum Values 22, 31–38 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-004-7228-x

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