Traditionally, information about the organic market is released on the first day of BIOFACH — the international exhibition of organic products. It’s been already many years that The Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL, Switzerland) releases statistical and generalized information about the organic market, which is based on the data collected from countries where organic production is being implemented. And all the organic world is looking forward to this information. But information regarding the results of 2019 is already available and it’s coming from different countries.
Let us recall that the world’s market of organic production in 2018 had reached 97 billion euros (about 105 billion US dollars) and we already know that the market in 2019 had grown even more.
The United States will definitely remain the biggest market in terms of consumption: according to the results of 2019, the growth was 4.6%, it’s more than 42 billion euros, and COVID-19 contributed to further growth in demand for organic products. During spring this year, at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a significant increase in demand for organic products — up to 50%; later during the spring, it had become 20%. By the way, the USA is the third largest importer of organic production from Ukraine.
Germany and France shared second place in the organic market production in 2018. According to the results of 2019, both markets demonstrated growth — 10% in Germany and 13.5% in France, so the countries’ market volume was 12 billion euros each. During the first months of the pandemic, there was also an increased demand for organic products in Germany.
Of course, we have to mention that the number of land areas under organic agriculture had increased too. In France, its share was 8.5% of overall agriculture lands (or 2.3 million hectares) according to the results of 2019, and in Germany, it was almost 9.5% (1.6 million hectares). Though the number of land areas under organic farming didn’t increase much in the world — about 2.9%, in Europe — there was a 7.6% increase.
Considering the Green New Deal announced by the European Union at the end of 2019 and «From farm to fork» strategy that accompanies it together with «Biodiversity» and aims to reach a 25% share for organic lands by 2030, the growth of the sector will continue. The increased demand for organic products can also be seen in Switzerland, which is the leader in consumption per person — according to the results of 2019, it’s 377 Swiss francs (about 350 euros) per person. Switzerland remained the second largest importer of organic production from Ukraine. In Ukraine, operational monitoring of the main indicators of organic agriculture is still ongoing, but the results of the organic consumer research are already available. In 2019, Ukrainians spent UAH 575 million on organic products of their own production, which is a bit less than in 2018. But at the beginning of 2020, in relation to the pandemic, Ukrainian producers registered increased demand for organic production again.
Kateryna Shor, OrganicInfo
More reviews of different countries can be found on our Facebook page and about organic organic market of Ukraine in our Infographic materials.