Development of organic sector. Status quo report Finland CoreOrganic Project HealthyGrowth: From niche to volume with integrity and trust. WP 2

Summary

Abstract. The present review on the development of the organic sector and on the status of the organic research in Finland has been compiled within the frame of the HealthyGrowth project. The numeric data are based on official statistics. The role of the government and the national goals and strategies were captured by analyzing about 20 relevant national policy documents. Regarding research, the focus was on the completed and on-going projects that deal with either policy, markets and consumers, with specific food items and/or their quality. The information was compiled from the research registers of the Finnish universities and MTT Agrifood Research Finland. The major part of the research deals with primary production. Out of the altogether 140 research projects, only 31 deal with the topics that are relevant in this review.
Organic farming has long, but thin roots in Finland. The official status was established in 1995 with Finland’s entry to EU. Today one of the goals of the Finish food policy is to expand the use of organic food, and the public sector is obligated to act as a path-breaker.
The area of organic cultivation is now about 9% from the total field area. Until past few years organic, sector has remained rather marginal (1%) within the Finnish food markets. Recently there has been a rapid increase. Organic products comprise now about 5% from the food sales, and the expansion is expected to continue.
Important milestones within the organic sector are foundation of the Organic Research Institute in 2013 and launching of the government promotion program for organic sector in the same year. In this program the goals for organic sector are explicitly specified and not treated parallel together with local food.