Following the request of the Government of the Republic of Croatia, in September 2003 the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) funded a technical assistance project for Croatia. The overall objective of this project was to improve rural income and food security through diversified production and specialty marketing of highvalue and high quality products with environment-enhancing production methods.

One of the project’s tasks was to produce an environmental and macroeconomic impact assessment of large-scale conversion to organic agriculture. The real impacts of large-scale conversion to organic and low-input agriculture are largely unknown and are subject to speculation. This assessment is meant to provide building bricks for future Croatian agriculture policies and measures required to support organic and lowinput farming. In May 2004, the FAO commissioned the University of Essex to commence a study trying to assess the environmental and economic consequences of widespread adoption of organic and lowinput farming in Croatia.