Background Organic
Do consumers want more organic farming?
Expanding the area of organic farming is one of the spearheads of the Common Agricultural Policy. In the United States, little attention is paid to organic farming in agricultural policy. Strangely enough, American consumers spend more on organic products than European consumers.
Research by FiBL and IFOAM shows that in 2019 in the European Union 14,6 million hectares were organically farmed by 343.858 farms, compared to 2,3 million hectares and 16.585 farmers in the US. With the size of the market for organic products, the relationship is the other way around. In the US, it amounted to $2019 billion in 56, while the EU was stuck at $46 billion, and the ratio is even more skewed in consumer spending: $94,08 per capita in the EU to $152,32 in the US. The US is therefore largely dependent on the import of organic products, while the EU is much more self-sufficient in that area.
EU does expand organic acreage
The goal of the European Commission is that 2030% of the European acreage will be farmed organically by 25. The Commission has identified three axes to focus on in the policy to promote organic farming. The first is to stimulate demand and strengthen consumer confidence. The second axis is to stimulate conversion by farmers and to strengthen the entire value chain. The third is the positive impact of organic farming on the environment and its sustainability.
According to critics, the focus in European policy is too much on encouraging farmers to switch. The international umbrella organization for the organic chain IFOAM wrote in a report earlier this year that a larger part of the EU agricultural budget should be made available especially for organic farming in order to achieve the target of 25% of the acreage.
Is there a need for more organic products?
Various farmers' interest groups in Europe are now concerned whether there is a sufficient market for additional organic products. Agricultural superpower France has set the goal in the NSP to double the current organic acreage to 2027% by 18 by supporting companies in the conversion. The French farmers' organization Coordination Rurale writes in a statement that it wants to support the switch to organic farming, but points out that the current demand for organic is stagnating and is already lagging behind supply.
This concern is a concern in more Member States, for example in Ireland. "As it is now, we are already struggling to find sufficient sales for the organic products," Fergal Byrne, chairman of the organic department at the Irish Association of Beef and Sheep Farmers, told Agriland. "Our great fear is that if more conventional farmers switch, the market for those extra organic products will simply not be there."
The Dutch trade association Bionext also wrote earlier this year that a new incentive policy should stimulate both supply and demand. "If we really want organic to take up a larger share in the Dutch supermarket, a rigorously different approach is needed than in recent years," writes Bionext director on the organization's site.
Different visions
The comparison between the EU and the US makes it clear that there could be more demand for organic products in the EU. The question that will have to be answered in the near future is how this can be achieved. Should the focus be placed on the production side, as has been customary in European agricultural policy so far, or is a change in thinking necessary and should the reasoning be based on demand, as industry organizations ask?
Jurphaas Lugtenburg
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