Results of the EISfOM project investigation into the current situation of data collection and processing

Conclusion - Currently few public data collection and processing systems on an international level exist with regard to the organic agriculture and food sector (however FAO, EUROSTAT, IFOAM have startes activities). - Less activities aree run to harmonise national organic data collection systems on an international level. - Investment decisions of market actors and support decisions of policy makers are taken under conditions of great uncertainty. - Organic data know-how in most countries concentrated on less and private minds. - Public demand for organic data presently often are just statements and action plan points to support organic farming in theory. - Partly the link is missing between political objectives (on national and international level) and realisation by statistic authorities. - The EU-project European Inforamtion Systems for Organic Markets will assist all national and international efforts to improve organic data collecting in next two years

Review of organic market development in Europe - from OFCAP to QLIF

During the last decade the organic market in Europe has increased enormously, more than doubling the value of its turnover. At the end of the 1990s, the OFCAP publication 'The European market for organic products: growth and development' identified five main constraints for the organic market development: 1) the lack of professional marketing, 2) the weak role of conventional supermarket chains as potential drivers of organic market development, 3) the absence of public support of marketing activities, 4) the limited size of supply batches and 5) a lack of market transparency. Recommendations included improving the availability of organic food, encouraging conventional retail chains to promote organic ranges, reducing the additional premiums on consumer prices and developing well-balanced mar-keting plans to promote the development of the or-ganic market. As a consequence several European research projects incorporated elements of the OFCAP analysis into new research topics and went on to recommend further ways in which the European organic market might be led out of its niche and consumers’ expectations of organic food might be satisfied. Both policy and mar-ket actors have taken on board fundamental ideas and concepts from the research projects in order to draw up marketing plans for the promotion of market development

The need for a European harmonised data collection on private organic consumption – methodological and economic issues -

European markets for organic products are growing rapidly, but the market information available in most European countries is seriously limited as a basis for investment and policy decisions. The EU was therefore funding a three-year concerted action EISfOM (European Information System of Organic Markets) to analyse the current situation in 32 countries and to develop proposals to improve the quality and the volume of a European wide organic production and market data collection to support the development of a sector which offers significant potential for further growth as well as environmental and economic benefits. One area of data collection is related to the consumption of organic food. Presently no official organic consumption and consumer price statistics exist at European level. However, there are manifold national approaches to get access to organic consumption data in terms of volumes and values mostly operated by private household panel approaches. The main barrier is related to a missing European approach to harmonise the different specifications and classifications which would be enable a cross country comparison of data. As user requirements and costs for different approaches differ as a minimum standard a European wide definition of key indicators for organic consumption and methods for national data output harmonisation should be developed

The European Market for Organic Food

Most of the information and statistics presented in this chapter were compiled as part of a survey among national experts of national or international organic markets. Many of these figures are based on estimates, and the methods of data collection vary from country to country as no uniform data collection system for organic market data is yet in place. In addition, national organic sales figures may vary between years depending on the information sources. Descriptions of market trends in this chapter are the result of market observations by Toralf Richter (Bio Plus AG, Switzerland) and Susanne Padel (University of Wales). The authors would welcome any comments that may help to improve the quality of data and information about the organic market in Europe in future. Some content of this chapter was already published in the Soil Association ‘Organic Market Report 2006’3

Impact of socio-demographic factors on consumption patterns and buying motives with respect to organic dairy products in Switerland

In the 1990s, the Swiss organic dairy market experienced an enormous expansion with annual growth rates of 10–15%. In 2001, approximately 191,000 tonnes of organic milk were produced. This corresponds to 4.9% of the overall milk production in Switzerland (Hamm and Gronefeld, 2003). This market expansion was clearly driven by a growing demand, which in turn was closely connected to the marketing activities of the major retailers (Richter and Sanders, 2001). Today, however, the situation has changed. While in the past, the demand for organic milk was typically higher than supply, there is currently an oversupply with approximately 7 million kg of organically produced milk that cannot be sold as organic milk (Bio Suisse, 2003). A similar development is likely for the next years. Since the number of organic buyers will not increase anymore only by the fact that organic food is available in the shelves of retailers, it is necessary to develop more target group and product group specific marketing strategies in Switzerland based on an in-depth understanding of organic consumer attitudes and consumption patterns. Through this strategy, it might be possible to achieve a further growth of the currently saturated market. The aim of this paper is to present and compare consumption data and survey results from three different sources, in order to give a comprehensive overview of the socio-demographic profiles of organic consumers and, in particular, of consumption patterns and buying motives with respect to organic dairy products. Based on these data, recommendations for improved marketing measures for organic dairy products are derived

Europe

Since the be ginning of the 1990s, organic farm ing has rapidly developed in almost all European countries. Growth has, however, slowed down recently. According to the Swiss Research Institute of Or ganic Agriculture FiBL, by the 31.12.2002 in the 15 countries of the European Union (EU), around 4.8 million hectares were man aged organically by al most 140,000 farms. This constituted 3.5 percent of the agricultural area and 2 percent of the farms in the EU. According to the SOEL-statistics in the whole of Europe cur rently 5.6 mil lion hect ares are managed or gani cally by ap prox imately 175,000 farmers. Compared to the previous year, this is an increase of 9 percent in the organic land area in the EU, mainly due to a strong growth in France, Spain and the UK. The number of farms went down, however, mainly due to a decrease in organic farms in Italy. There are also sub stantial differ ences between indi vid ual countries re gard ing the importance of organic farm ing. More than 11 percent of ag ricultural land is organic in Austria, and 10 percent in Switzerland. Some countries have yet to reach one percent. The coun try with the highest number of farms and the greatest number of hectares is Italy. One quarter of the European Union’s organic land and more than one third of its organic farms are located here. A complete overview of the statistical development of the organic sec tor since the 1990s is available at the homepage of the Or ganic Cen tre Wales at www.organic.aber.ac.uk/stats.shtml

The European Market for organic Fairtrade Products

Central American countries are important producers of organic products. Their export base, however, is heavily dependent on a limited number of products (coffee, cocoa, banana, sugar), which is threatening the sustainability of this export sector. Therefore, there is an urgent need to diversify the export base and develop regional and national markets, which are continuously growing and have an interesting potential. The purpose of this study is to give an overview of the current mood and potential of the European organic and Fairtrade market, as well as Central American products. The study has been developed for the project ECOMERCADOS, which is financed by SECO

The Market for Organic Products in Europe, Focus: Animal Production

Conclusions: - Organic milk is most succesful organic animal product - Growing international trade driven by tremendous farmer price differences and structural differences in supply - Pork, poultry and egg production have high costs - Meat: Limited additional willingness to pay for organi

Den Nerv getroffen

Schon lange exportiert die Ukraine Biofuttermittel in großem Stil nach Westeuropa. Doch das allein macht den Biolandbau dieses Landes nicht mehr aus – in den letzten Jahren hat sich ein Biosektor etabliert, der jung, dynamisch und enthusiastisch ist

Trends im Lebensmitteleinzelhandel. Mit Premium-Produkten Wechselkäufer gewinnen

In den meisten Ländern Europas hat sich in den letzten zwei Jahren das Wachstum im Bio-Lebensmittelmarkt deutlich abgeschwächt. Warum ist der über Jahre zuverlässige Wachstumsmotor im Bio-Markt ins Stocken geraten? Folgt er einfach den gleichen Konjunkturzyklen wie die Gesamtwirtschaft oder sind wir in Westeuropa mit Bio-Marktanteilen zwischen zwei und vier Prozent bereits an Sättigungsgrenzen der Gesellschaft angelangt