Organic Farming in Africa Has Increased Significantly Covid-19 pandemic raised Organic Products Consumption - Germany, the world's second largest market after the United States

The global organic food market has never progressed as much as in 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Worldwide sales increased by more than 13% to €121 billion. Many markets are posting higher growth rates, such as Germany, the world’s second-largest market after the United States, which grew by 22% to reach €15 billion.

“ The effects of the pandemic are visible in retail sales data. As people stayed home and started cooking more often and staying healthy, the environment and climate change became big issues, retail sales of organic products grew rapidly. However, at the same time, in catering, sales have fallen in many countries,” says Helga Willer, FiBL responsible for the 23rd edition of The World of Organic Agriculture, Statistics & Emerging Trends 2021, also produced by IFOAM.

Organic acreage has also increased, but less rapidly than sales. They increased by 4.1%, or 3 million additional hectares compared to 2019, to reach 74.9 million hectares. Australia has the largest organic agricultural area (35.7 million ha), followed by Argentina (4.5 million ha) and Uruguay (2.7 million ha). Half of the world’s organic agricultural land is in Oceania (35.9 million ha). Europe had the second largest area (17.1 million ha), followed by Latin America (9.9 million ha).

In 2020, the organic area is increasing on all continents, but overall 1.6% of agricultural land in the world is organic, the same percentage as in 2019.

In Africa too, organic is also gaining ground

In 2020, land under organic cultivation increased by 7.7% to reach more than 2 million hectares with 834,000 producers. Tunisia remains the country with the largest area (over 290,000 hectares) while Sao Tome and Principe has the highest percentage of land devoted to organic farming (20.7%).

The most important organic permanent crops are tree nuts (mainly cashew nuts), which were grown over an area of ​​over 291,000 ha (Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire), followed by olives (Tunisia), coffee (Ethiopia), and cocoa (DR Congo, Sierra Leone) – each with an area greater than 200,000 ha. It should be noted that since 2010, the organic nut sector has grown by a factor of almost fourteen. The most important organic arable crops are cotton (Tanzania, Uganda), soybeans (Togo), and sesame.

Source: commodafrica

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