Developing national Organic sectors: the key lessons

Summary

Organic Agriculture is present in 160 countries. All of them have developed differently and have different situations. The Organic World is organized in a decentralized way. It emphasizes local solutions to local challenges and prefers short chains of local production and consumption to globalized supply chains. While some countries have fairly well-developed and advanced Organic Sectors, others have just started. Governments and development actors increasingly realize that Organic agriculture provides ample opportunities to implement rural development agendas and national policies. Some countries have well-balanced Organic Movements that drive the development of the sector, while actors in other countries remain isolated or even compete with each other in a destructive manner. The pace of development of the Organic Sectors and the strategies of the stakeholders are also quite diverse. A wealth of experiences about success factors in Organic Sector development exists, and IFOAM offers the service to assist national action plan development, but there remains great potential to learn from one another on tackling the challenges