Brazil has a market in the order of R$ 2.5 billion (640 Mio.$), including exports, with the expectation of growth of 30-35% in 2016. A figure still small compared with the overall value of the national agribusiness sector where in general represents close to 23% of national GDP. The agribusiness sector is responsible for the employment of 39% of the population of the country, over 39% of exports and with only 30% of the land used.

Beginning of a process

The organic industry is at the beginning of a process with the structuring of a work order established in chains: primary, with a large number of small and micro-producers, agroecological and family farming agriculture; and in the secondary sector, with small and innovative entrepreneurs to large processors and industries which see an alternative viable business in organic.
Assuming an assertive position, ORGANIS, the Brazilian Council for the Organic and Sustainable Production was created as a business platform to unite the sector by members of all production chain, including producers, processors, companies and Brazilian entrepreneurs from the organic and sustainable sector.



High potential for growth

These numbers show the potential for growth. It is important to know that the market will be determined by the demand, production and availability of the products. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, in November 2015 were recorded 11.478 organic producers units, being the South region the largest number of production units representing around 36% of the total, followed by the Northeast (32%) and South (21%). Rio Grande do Sul has 1,598 organic producers, followed by Parana and São Paulo, with 1,561 and 1,290 producers.

Huge number of street markets

in retail, organic products are in virtually all the major supermarket chains, in addition to the continuous increase in the number of organic fair and street markets which are already more than 600 happening weekly in all regions of Brazil.
The challenge for the industry is to be structured to have products in all segments of food and drinks to meet this demand. We can predict that this situation should follow the same development as it was observed in the United States and in Europe, where the large companies have just been adapting to have more organic products lines.



Brazil´s organic legislation

Brazil also initiated this process in 2003, publishing the Law 10.831 under the wings of agroecology and family agriculture and became effective only in 2011. Brazil by its geographical extent, with the diversity of the nature of producers from a variety of climate and biomes, established a more inclusive legislation, unlike other countries, in which the main channel of production was just based in the traditional structure of agriculture and the processing. The regulation was turned effective in 2011, with the creation of the national seal that represented the credibility that the consumer needs.

Author of the article: Ming Liu is director of ORGANIS and executive coordinator of Organics Brasil.


contact: mingliu@organis.org.br

See the report from 2014