A Perspective on Organic Agriculture in China - Opportunities and Challenges

Summary in the original language of the document

With the rapid development of international production and trade in organic food, organic agriculture is also boosting in China. The milestone of Chinese organic agri-culture was set in 1990 with the first export of a certified organic product (tea) from Lin’an county of Zhejiang Province, China, which marked the launch of organic pro-duction in China. By the end of 2005, there had been about 4.384 million ha organic land, including 1.694 million ha organic, 0.61 million ha conversion as well as 2.08 million ha collection area, about half of which is certified area. About 4.93 million tons organic products and nearly 1600 projects had been certified with 300~400 varieties. According to the above data, now China ranks the 3rd largest country of organic production in the world.
In China, organic development mostly is export oriented, the export products include beans, rice, tea, mushroom, vegetable, processed oil and herbs, etc. According to the certifying body COFCC of Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), the value of exported organic products increased from 0.3 million USD in 1995 to 0.35 billion USD at the end of the year 2004. Chinese domestic organic market started from 2000. Presently, most of the products sold in domestic markets are certified by COFCC and OFDC in some largest cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shenzhen, etc. The price of the organic products is often up to 3 times the price of conventional products. Average organic food consumption accounts for 0.08% of the conventional food (LI 2006).