4. Conclusions
Literature review shows that organic farming and sustainable agriculture are not
synonymous. It is argued that, as organic farming is becoming more popular among
consumers, large agribusiness corporations are more and more attracted by the profit
that this market niche may generate leading to conventionalization, meaning that the
organic sector is coming to resemble the conventional. The conventionalisation
hypothesis researchers identifies larger-scale production units, industrialized
monocropping, increased mechanization, hired labor, vertical integration, production
contracts, regional specialization, mass marketing, and globalization as main symptoms
that the process is under way. However some of this trends have not been empirically
verified leading several researchers to claim that more empirical studies are needed on
the topic of conventionalization.