Organic market worldwide: observed trends in the last few years

Summary

Organic farming, which emerged in the first decades of the past century (Vogt 2000), continues to grow globally and has reached wide acceptance amongst farmers, consumers, market actors, policy makers and the public in many countries. Organic agriculture has garnered increasing official attention and support in the past years, in particular since 2000.
The Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL has been compiling and publishing data on organic agriculture based on national data sources and data from international certifiers annually since 2000. The data are published annually in a yearbook (Willer & Lernoud 2019) and online (FiBL 2019). According to the latest FiBL survey on certified organic agriculture worldwide, as of the end of 2017 organic food and drink sales reached 92 billion euros.
Current market trends observed over the past years include continued growth, rising organic market shares, increasing imports, and general retailers gaining importance as marketing channel. Other relevant developments are that organic area and market shares are increasingly used to demonstrate progress towards SDGs 2 (zero hunger) and 12 (sustainable consumption), and that, while organic data availability improves, many challenges need to be tackled.