Indian Organic Market To Touch $1.36 Billion By 2020: IFOAM

The area of organic agricultural land in Asia is almost four million hectares, suggests a report from international federation of organic agriculture movements (IFOAM). It is just 0.2 per cent of total agriculture area in the region. Eight per cent of the global organic land area is in Asia. As compared to 2001 the organic land in Asia has also increased around eight fold in 2015.  The major increase in the organic land area has seen in 2014-15 that is 11 per cent.

A country with the largest organic agriculture area is China (around 1.6 million hectares) it is well expected as China’s geographical area is also one of the largest in the world (even with the maximum world population). India, on the other hand, has the most number of organic product producers around the world. Nations with highest organic shares of total organic lands are Timor-Leste (6.6 per cent) and Sri Lanka (3.5 per cent).

According to the study, it has proven that cereals and oilseeds are among the major grown organic crops in the Asia. Organic oil seeds production gives a neck to neck competition between China and India. Rice is the organic produce where China leads the world.

The Market
According to the international federation of organic agriculture moments (IFOAM) report most of the organic market data cannot be gathered from Asia due to various reasons but watching the trend of major Asian economies like China, India and East Asia assumptions of organic market growth can easily be derived as a result. According to the outlook, “Eight countries provided organic retail sales values, less than 20 per cent of the countries with the organic data. As per IFOAM, “From the data available we can assume that a whopping 6.3 billion euros of organic produce had been sold in Asia. China alone had witnessed some 4.7 billion euros of domestic trade making it world’s fourth biggest organic market. Japan has also marked its presence in the domestic market as per the data old of 2009 Japan had a domestic trade of one billion euros. South Korea has also marked a 281 million euros domestic trade.

India & Policies
Significant growth in Organic produce in India is due to conducive policies that had led to increase the use of third party certification areas and the promotion of participatory guarantee scheme. Few pioneering civil society organisations involved in facilitating PGS has also influenced union government’s policies for organic farming (IFOAM & FiBL outlook). India is amongst very nations in the world, where PGS is recognised and promoted by the government. Outlook also notes that there are many areas in India which witness Organic farming as a tradition. These land tracts are often found in many areas of North-East, few Northern and central Indian regions which are not included in organic farming but do not use chemical pesticides and fertilisers as a traditional practice. A Study by ASSOCHAM projects India’s organic trade, it may also rise up to 1.36 billion US dollars by the year 2020 from .36 billion US dollars in 2014.