As with any other agricultural product, development of an organic agriculture system for citrus inevitably requires consideration of its economic viability. It should be noted that little research has thus far been done in this area.

The objective of the present report is to try to ascertain, to some degree, the economic and financial viability of organic growing systems, compared with conventional systems. The methodology employed must take into account the fact that these are perennial crops which, in virtually every case, are not new plantings, since, in accordance with the specifications, they are conversions from conventional to organic farming, which must conform to the so-called minimum conversion period (2 years for this growing system).

This requires dynamic financial evaluation methods which consider the value of money over time since, as mentioned above, these are economic activities with a time horizon of more than one year.

Our first concern will be to estimate the costs of organic farming compared with conventional farming. Our second step will then be to set up a scenario of anticipated yields and prices. In doing so, we shall refer to the data provided by the farms addressed in our study and also compare them against prices given by other market sources (Michelsen J., et al, 1999).

We shall also calculate viability indicators, once we have made the necessary general and specific assumptions. The indicators in question are Net Current Value (NCV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Recovery Period (RP).

Lastly, our results will be subjected to sensitivity analysis, with a view to predicting the evolution of the aforementioned indicators under various price scenarios.