PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVING FACTORS AND STRATEGIES OF THE ORGANIC APPLE FARMERS IN SWITZERLAND

Various factors and strategies have been identified that help lead to successful organic apple farming in Switzerland.
Production, input and technical strategies that farmers have implemented over the past ten years are analyzed.
Other factors investigated with regard to successful organic apple production include forms of grower cooperation and their effects, orchard size, farm size, and operational and technical management.
A logit model is used to identify which factors and strategies are effective.
The results show that productivity is a crucial success factor which explains the difference between the successful and the less successful groups in the model.
The hypothesis of a significant relationship between productivity and orchard size or farm size is rejected, while the model confirms the importance of the operational and technical management for successful organic apple farming.

Organic Fruit Conference

D. Mencarelli Hofmann, L. Bertschinger, E. Bravin

success factors, production strategies, input strategies, technical strategies, horizontal cooperation, operational management, technical management

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2010.873.22