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Friday February 16, 8:52 PMOrganic food sales blossoming, industry saysNUREMBERG, Germany, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Organic food is going mainstream in the U.S. and Europe, with sales rising by $5-to-$6 billion annually, and it should be a boon to producers in Third World countries, industry experts said on Friday."Five years ago European sales were concentrated at health food shops and specialist retailers," Amarjit Sahota of consultants Organic Monitor said. "Now it is being sold in the main supermarkets and demand for organic food is outstripping supply." Sahota spoke at the BioFach organic food trade fair, the largest European event of its kind, held in this German city. The fair brings together producers and supermarket buyers to discuss trends and to sample hundreds of new products. Global organic sales reached an estimated $39 billion in 2006, up from $33 billion in 2005, and could rise by up to $6 billion more in 2007, Sahota said. Shortages are developing as production cannot meet sharply rising demand, especially in Europe and the U.S., he added. "There is just not enough supply in the U.S. and it is having to import organic food from Latin America, Africa, Asia and even Europe," he said. Europe and North America together account for 97 percent of global organic food sales. He estimated Europe's sales are increasing at 15 percent a year. The biggest market is Germany, followed by the UK, France and Italy. Sales in the U.S. are growing at 16 percent annually, he estimated. A major reason is also that mainstream supermarkets, especially Wal-Mart , have put organic food on their shelves. BENEFITS THIRD WORLD Sahota said farmers in Third World countries stood to reap the benefits of growing demand as farms in developed countries tend to use more chemicals than those in poorer countries. "In Europe farms which have used chemicals on their land have to wait for three years while their land is cleansed before they get organic certification," he said. "As Third World farmers do not use agricultural chemicals they can get certification almost immediately." African farmers were gaining from the trend. "We are seeing the switch across the board with a range of crops in countries like Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Egypt," he said. "This is almost entirely being produced for export." "I estimate there has been a 9,000 percent increase in organic farming in Africa in the last four years and a 1,000 percent increase in Latin America." A research study presented at the fair stressed that organic farming is still only a minor part of global farming. At the end of 2005, about 31 million hectares were farmed organically but this was just 0.7 percent of the global farm area, said report co-author Helga Willer, of the Swiss-based Research Institute of Organic Agriculture. "I expect this will have risen substantially in 2006 but it is very difficult to put any figure on it," she said. A substantial part of the total was pastureland in countries such as Australia, Argentina and even China, where since no chemicals are used anyway farmers can gain organic certification quickly. There were signs of continuing switches from conventional farming in Europe and the U.S., she said. |
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