1 CERTIFICATION OF FOOD PRODUCTS USING EMERGY ANALYSIS

In the commerce of food products there is an urgent need for a certification procedure to make it possible to distinguish products according to the different technical, environmental and social characteristics of their production systems. Food products can be grouped into three main types, according to their origin: ecological, organic and agrochemical. Up to now, ecological farmers have obtained a better price for their products but, as the number of agrochemical farmers that adopt organic techniques increases, the price paid for ecological products may decrease, jeopardizing ecological family managed farms. The ecological farm is quite different from other kinds of farm. It is a farm with a small or medium area (10-30 ha), managed by a family group who lives there, usually obeying environmental laws, preserving and using properly the natural resources. It is not fully oriented to the market, it produces for self consumption and exchanges many things without the use of money. The majority of its products are consumed in the region and part is exported. The ratio people/ha is high even if it is not formal employment. On the other hand, an agrochemical farm can be of medium (30 ha), large (300 ha) or very big size (3000 ha or more) and is operated by an urban enterprise