Labour, Livelihoods and the Quality of Life in Organic Agriculture in Europe

One argument for supporting organic farming has been that it requires more labour and leads to higher rural employment. On the other hand, the high labour costs may constrain the development of the organic sector. This paper reviews the current knowledge about labour use changes in the conversion to organic farming in Western Europe. It discusses how key concepts derived from feminist literature on rural women and agriculture can enlarge the existing knowledge of labour in organic farming which is mainly a product of farm management approaches.