Organic is growing worldwide. Driven by consumer demand-increasingly interested in buying food obtained without pesticides-the global market continues to gain share. In 2015, it reached 75 billion euros, according to Organic Monitor. And more importers than producers are growing in Europe.
Organic markets
The report presented by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and IFOAM at Biofach 2017 (1) in Nuremberg pits the data of unstoppable success.
The United States remains the world’s leading organic market: with 11 percent growth in 2015, the sector is worth 35.9 billion euros.
The ranking sees Germany in second place (8.6 billion euros), followed by France (5.5 billion euros) and China (4.7 billion euros).
Europe: +13%.
In Europe, the organic market grew 13 percent in 2015, reaching a turnover of 2.2 billion euros.
Demand is concentrated in four countries. After Germany and France (also topping the world rankings) come Great Britain (2.6 billion euros) and Italy (2.3 billion euros, up 15 percent).
How much do we spend to eat organic
Per capita spending on the purchase of organic farming products amounts to 53.7 euros in the European Union and 36.4 euros in geographic Europe. Here the Swiss hold the record, with 262 euros per person per year, the highest per capita amount in the world. This is followed by the Danes (191 euros) and the Swedes (177 euros).
More importers than producers
In Europe, the countries with the largest areas remain Spain (1.97 million hectares), Italy (1.49 million hectares) and France (1.37 million hectares). Across Europe, organic areas increased by 8.2 percent in 2015.
As for the ratio of producers, importers and processors, however, uneven growth is shown. Organic producers (350,000 in 2015) are up 3 percent, registered importers (3,700 in 2015) are up 12 percent, and processors (60,000) are up 19 percent.
Notes
(1) The full report presented at Biofach 2017 by FiBL and IFOAM is available here.
