The future growth of the global organic food market could be at risk if organic land area does not grow sufficiently to meet rising demand, according to research from Informa’s Agribusiness Intelligence.
Since 2011 the global organic farmland area has grown by 8.4% per year, but organic food consumption is exceeding the growth of land, rising by 10.2% per year over the same period.
Informa said that as of 2016, a total of 57.8 million hectares had been approved for organic production, amounting to 1.2% of the world’s farmland. In the last two years, 13.4 million hectares of new organic farmland has been created, as demand for organic food and drink products grows.
Some 2.7 million farmers worldwide were identified as organic farmers in 2016 (up 13% year on year). There are now 15 countries around the world – from Sweden to Samoa – where more than 10% of the total farmland area is registered organic.
The European Union (EU) is the second biggest market in the world for organic products, with sales in 2016 estimated at €30.7 billion.
From 2021 onwards, the EU will insist that its own domestic rules should directly apply to imported organic goods, and that current ‘equivalency’ agreements, which the European Commission says allows upwards of 60 different standards to be considered equivalent to EU standards, will no longer be valid. This, the EU claims, will finally establish a level playing field between EU producers and those from third countries.
Chris Horseman, policy consultant to Informa’s Agribusiness Intelligence, said: “A massive international market now exists for organic food and drink products, ranging from fresh fruit and vegetables through to ready meals and processed foods, but future growth is by no means assured.
“Sophisticated regulatory frameworks are in place to govern all aspects of the organic food chain, from approved farm management techniques to rules on the marketing and labelling of organic products. But demand for new organic farmland to serve this growth is ever increasing.
“This is especially pressing considering that the unit yields from organic agriculture are lower than those from conventional agriculture. In the longer term, a growing world population may pose questions about the sustainability of organic farming, and whether there remains room in the market for a production system which renounces pesticides and artificial fertilisers and hence does not seek to maximise output and yield by using in the same way that conventional agriculture aims to.”
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024