Organic farming for chicken production in relation to short circuit selling activity

Abstract

In reaction to scandals demonstrating poor quality or fraud on food, consumers are increasingly interested in local food providers engaged in a more natural husbandry. Organic farmers have participated from the very beginning in the development of local economical short circuits. In complement to their livestock production they have added the commercialization of these products. This has increased the farmer’s labor intensity and has added complexity to the farm’s labour organization . The relationships between livestock farming tasks and selling of the products will be the main topic of our paper. The investigation was undertaken in several French regions and is based on the interviews of 21 farmers involved in organic chicken production. We will show that the choice of selling their products resulted in many challenges, forced them to develop new skills and finally to reorganize their farm.