Increasingly popular for consumers, highly profitable for producers and extremely beneficial to our health and environment, organics are making their way to the mainstream.
Our current food production habits, although integral to saving one billion people from starvation during the Green Revolution, are unsustainable in the face of depleting energy and water supplies as well as the drastic effect these practices have on global health and our environment. Organic food production, the sustainable alternative, prohibits the use of synthetic pesticide, fertilizers, antibiotics or growth hormones for the development of crops or animal produce. Relying on natural strategies such as the use of biological pest control, nutrition and crop rotation, organic farming is safer for the environment due to its beneficial impact to natural habitats. These practices also allow the soil to maintain its natural (and healthier) condition. In other words, organic food is produced using environmentally and animal friendly farming methods.
The demand for an organic lifestyle is spreading worldwide, with consumers becoming increasingly aware of its health and environmental benefits and legislators creating a favourable regulatory environment for increased organic production.
Growth in Global Organic Agricultural Land 1999-2014
Source: FIBL & IFOAM (2016)
The global organics market, worth US$80.4 billion in 2014 (and having increased five-fold since 1999) is expected to double to US$161.5 billion by 2018. Sustained demand from the 43 million Americans who buy organic products every week supports a domestic market worth US$35.9 billion in 2015. Markets in Germany, France and the United Kingdom also reached a cumulative US$17 billion this year.
Despite consumers showing an appetite for organic foods, with sales rising by 7% annually (nearly three times that of the overall food industry), producers are turning to emerging markets to ensure they have sufficient supply. “We are simply not keeping up”, admits George Siemon, Chief Executive of Organic Valley – America’s largest co-operative of organic producers.
Approximately 80% of the total of 2.3 million organic producers around the world are based in developing countries, with the majority coming from India, Uganda, Mexico and Tanzania. In Brazil the market has grown by 35% this year to $2 billion. Companies such as Organomix, Pap Emporium and our very own Organeem meet the growing demand for organic products in the region. Derived from the neem grown at our own plantations, Organeem products are supplied to the agricultural, medical and cosmetic industries.
While many of us associate organic with food, there is also a growing market in organic textiles and health and beauty products. Because organic describes the underlying system of agricultural production, buying organic products helps to support the climate-friendly farming that is going to be so important as we face up to the environmental challenges of the 21st century.
As consumers become more educated and aware of agriculture’s more dangerous traditions, pressure is placed on producers and their governments to change archaic policies in favor of organics, further expediting the industry’s transition to safer and sustainable practices. This is already occurring within the United States, with the Environmental Protection Agency restricting the use of synthetic pesticides, fertilizers and antibiotics in modern agriculture. The EU, keen to promote a greater degree of responsibility on its Common Agricultural Policy – at 40% the largest component of its overall budget, provides a layer of financial support to farmers who enhance sustainability in their management of natural resources.
Organic farming not only has a positive effect on the quality of food we eat, but also on our personal wellbeing as well as being beneficial to the environment. Preventing potential health hazards imposed by synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, while providing better living conditions to animals, organic farming ensures natural land productivity and global health. This will be the major drive for an increase in agricultural legislation, as an informed public demands a more natural, healthy and sustainable global food system.