Dynamic of ecological agriculture certification in Romania facing the EU Organic Action Plan

Abstract

Approaching the ecological agriculture topic in the context of European Policies to accelerate the conversion to those policies is an interdisciplinary challenge. The motivation to develop this subject is based on the longitudinal observation that the ecological agriculture evolution in Romania has been very slow, despite the policies aimed to accelerate the transition from the conventional to the ecological agriculture have been supported since the 2000s. The goal of the paper is to reframe the available data to evidence the slow dynamics of the organic farms’ certification. The methods used are descriptive and numerical analysis, supplemented by a qualitative-transversal interpretation. The research work has been carried out on the dynamic analysis of the ecological agriculture progress in Romania, based on the data with the ecological certification of the specialized companies (2019–2021). The main hypothesis: the slow dynamics are caused by subjective barriers. The results confirm the slow dynamics of ecological certifications due to some limits and barriers to understand the real role and benefits from the ecological agriculture. In this context, the European Union Organic Action Plan for 2021–2030 proves to be a stimulus for the Romanian ecological agriculture.