Development of organic agriculture in Belarus: main actors, challenges, barriers and first successes

Summary

Organic agriculture in Belarus began to develop later in comparison even with other post-soviet countries. The main barriers were absence of organic legislation and certification, lake of financial support for organic farmers, administrative system of management in agricultural sector.
During last 5 years, NGOs ware main actors in the field of organic farming development. In cooperation with international NGOs they organized seminars, published books, brochures, provided information for all stakeholders via web-page, articles in mass-media. We encourage Belarusian farmers to use organic farming methods and support them. First producers started certification process accordingly with EU legislation 3 years ago.
The first marketing study of consumers’ preferences relating organic products in Belarus showed: 95,4% of respondents would like to buy organic products. However, the market of organic products in Belarus are in very beginning in spite of large potential of developing. Consumers are interested in buying organic products, producers start to work organically, but we have many challenges for developing the whole chain ‘producer-consumer’. We consider it as a main barrier to organic agriculture development in our country.
2012 was the year of new stage of organic agriculture development. Government authorities started state program of organic farming development. The cooperation between authorities, scientific institutes, NGOs and agricultural producers was established. The results of such cooperation are international conferences and working group of national legislation elaboration.
The practical results of the first stage of development of organic agriculture in Belarus and plans for the future will be presented at the poster.