BioFach delighted with strong market growth

For the first time the area of organically managed land in Germany has passed the one million hectare mark. Although the expansion of 2.3 % was only half the rate of recent years, it was sufficient to raise the total area to 1,013,540 ha. Estimates show that the turnover of the organic industry in Germany probably rose to 6.6 billion euros last year. This information is contained in the latest brochure published by the organic umbrella organization BÖLW in readiness for BioFach 2012. It was critical of the fact that the gap between high demand and a low farm conversion rate is getting bigger, and in response the level of imports in Germany is automatically rising. (Picture: The day before the opening was media day, here with Claus Rättich, NürnbergMesse)
For the second time before the start of BioFach 2012, a media day was held - an event for imparting knowledge of organics, current trends and the figures for 2011. It was opened by a member of the NürnbergMesse management team Claus Rättich, who welcomed the representatives of the press with the information that a survey among the exhibitors had revealed that the total number of different organic products on all the stands amounted to roughly 100,000. “This means that BioFach is the world’s biggest organic supermarket, that has concentrated in this one spot the variety present in the industry as a whole.” He said that the aura of success emanating from the industry was influencing other sectors, as could be seen, for example, in the local government conference being held parallel to BioFach by the city of Nuremberg on the theme “Bio in the City”. Rättich explained that the slight fall in exhibitors was down to the partial elimination of grants in Spain and Italy for participation in trade fairs. He pointed out that the current debt crisis had fortunately not affected the number of people registering to attend the fair.

The demand for organic food is picking up robustly after two years of practically zero growth. The consequence of this is that the gap between domestic production and imports is getting wider. Demand
(9 %) grew nearly four times the rate at which organic land increased in area.

The prognosis for 2102 of Alexander Gerber (picture), the managing director of BÖLW, is positive - at least as far as the organic market is concerned. Continuing demand will lead to further strong growth. However, politicians ought to act urgently to support farmers to convert to organic. Criticism of federal states like Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg is increasing after they drastically reduced or completely abolished their financial support for organic agriculture. Felix Prinz zu Löwenstein, the chairman of the board of BÖLW, thinks that the federal government too has a duty to act: “The federal government has so far failed to create the framework conditions that make organic agriculture permanently competitive with conventional agriculture.” He said that the Minister of Agriculture was in possession of a comprehensive catalogue of measures from the European Council to promote sustainable development, but she had so far ignored its proposals. Of the 990,702 ha of organic land in Germany in 2010, 52 % was grassland and 44 % was used as arable land. Permanent crops, including meadow orchards, accounted for the remaining 4 %. Since the price rises in the case of organic farmers were higher and in the case of animal products production was increased, the proportion of organics in the sales revenue of German agriculture rose from 3.3 to 3.5 %. In 2010, organic farmers received nearly 1.30 billion euros for their products compared with 1.09 billion euros the year before.

Current organic market data were compiled by a recently formed working group using a new survey method. With the participation of Agrarmarkt Informationsgesellschaft (AMI), the working group ”Arbeitskreis Biomarkt“ ascertained the level of organic turnover on the basis of data supplied by the market research organizations GfK, Nielsen and Klaus Braun Kommunikationsberatung. According to their estimates, turnover rose from 6.02 billion euros in 2010 to 6.59 billion euros in 2011. Thus the proportion of organics in the total food market rose to 3.7 % in 2011. In the same period of time, the number of organic farms increased at a higher rate than the area of organically managed land from 21,942 to 23,003, which is a gain of 1,061 farms, or 4.8 %. About two thirds (68 %) are members of one of the nine farmers’ associations in Germany. The other third is made up of EU-certified farms that are usually visited once a year by an organic inspection organization. The land of farmers in an association grew by 10,566 ha (1.5 %) whereas EU organic farms increased their land area by ca. 4 %. The average size of farms in an organic association is 59 ha and, as in the past, this is about twice as big as EU organic farms, that have on average approximately 29 ha.

BÖLW ‘s new brochure contains an interesting calculation of potential carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture in North Rhine-Westphalia. A survey of the most important organic businesses revealed that, to meet the demand for organic food in the next few years, it would be necessary to increase organic land by 36,000 ha – 32,000 ha for special or arable crops and 4,000 ha grassland (mainly for pig and poultry keeping). There are still bottlenecks on the supply side, especially in the case of fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, poultry meat, eggs and pork. This is why the government of NRW has launched a two-year pilot project with the aim of improving interaction in the regional organic market between producers, processing and storage companies, the retail trade and all other companies and service providers involved in the organic value added chain. The target is to bring supply more in line with demand.

On the media day, Klaus Braun (Kommunikationsberatung) presented the latest growth rates of the industry. Whereas like-for-like sales in the retail wholefood trade grew by 9 %, the wholesale trade enjoyed growth of 12.7 %, because it stocked a large number of new shops. The operating results of specialist stores increased by 15 % compared with 2010. He said that the average profit from turnover per store was 7 %.

Helga Willer, from the research institute FibL, stated that the area of organic land worldwide had not expanded in 2011 and currently amounted to 37 million ha. She said that the figures for Europe were 10 million ha and organic turnover of 20 billion euros. However, arable land and permanent crops (e.g. fruit trees and vines), that are particularly important for organic production, increased by 6 %. The most important permanent crops in terms of area are coffee (0.7 mill. ha), olives (0.5 mill. ha) and cocoa (0.3 mill. ha).
The global market for organic products is estimated to be 44.5 billion euros, with growth of approximately 8 % in 2011.

Markus Arbenz (picture above on right), the managing director of the worldwide umbrella organization of the organic industry, IFOAM, commented: “We’re not happy with stagnation and want to see ourselves experiencing further growth!“ The responsibility for growth lies principally with politicians, who must create the right framework conditions. Elke Röder (picture on left) explained the activities of BNN Herstellung und Handel regarding training and advanced training. This industry association was also active last year in the sphere of sustainability: they developed a BNN sustainability monitor, with 23 out of 71 member companies taking part. To obtain benchmark data, they look at various factors like energy and water consumption, emissions and environmentally friendly energy production. She said that examples of best practice would give all the companies participating in the sustainability monitor an insight into the measures that some firms were already implementing.

India, as Country of the Year 2012, revealed some amazing figures. The number of organic farms - around 400,000 in 2010 – was said to have shot up to about a million. The organic market volume was quantified by Asit Tripathy from the Indian export company APEDA at more than a billion US-dollars, with exports amounting to 400 million US-dollars.

Tipp:
„Zahlen, Daten, Fakten - Die Bio-Branche 2012“, published by BÖLW.
World of Organic Agriculture 2012 by IFOAM and FiBL, www.organic-world.net
BioFach: www.biofach.com