Why certified organic has reached its peak and what comes next
As I mentioned in an earlier article, I participated in the Organic Summit 2025 in Copenhagen recently. The goal of the conference was to promote the goal of 25 percent organic production and consumption within the EU 2030. The Danes had thus stretched the public EU target of 25 percent organic acreage considerably. As organic farms have lower yields and organic farming has a lot of higher uptake in less intensive areas there is a huge gap between 25 percent organic farmland and 25 percent organic production, and the leap is even bigger to a 25 percent organic market share. Anyway, the conference, as conferences go, was successful and it adopted a declaration with the standard calls for more support, research etc. In the closing, Connie Hedegaard, former EU Commissioner for climate and Danish minister for environment called organic agriculture for a Swiss army knife due to its multiple benefits (coincidentally I used the same metaphor in an article 13 years ago).
Denmark was a suitable host for the event. It has the highest market share of organic products in the world, 12 percent. Visiting Denmark you will find organic products in all supermarkets. The city of Copenhagen serves 90 percent organic food in its school canteens and other public canteens and over the years there has been a massive public support for organic agriculture in Denmark. The inspection of organic farms has been governmental and without cost, in most countries this is done on a commercial basis by private companies. Already in the late 1980s a national public mark for organic was established. The organic sector has also been well organized in Organic Denmark, and it should have a lot of credit for the success. Also here, the government has been helpful with generous support to the sector, including to its organization.
The Danish mark for organic products
Still, even in Denmark organic farming hasn’t grown in the last few years. In the conference it was apparent that the chance that the EU target of 25 percent organic farmland by 2030 will be fulfilled is slim, or rather non-existent, at least not in 2030. In many of the countries with a more developed organic sector there is no longer growth in the production side and the market is at a standstill, or even in reverse. In my home country Sweden, both production and market share have been shrinking since a peak in 2017/2018. In Greece and Portugal, however, organic area is rapidly increasing towards 25-30 percent. According to Nic Lampkin, organic policy researcher for many years, with the current development some 16-18 percent of the EU agriculture area could be organic by 2030. In the market place, on an EU-wide level the market share for organic foods is in the range of 3-4 percent (my own calculation lands at 3 percent). In the biggest market, Germany, it is around 6.5 percent (down from a peak of 7 percent in 2021).
On the one hand one could claim that organic agriculture has been very successful over the last 40 years, on the other hand, it is still just a niche. The relative success of Denmark can be a good example for others to follow. Meanwhile, it also shows the limitations of a market led development for organic.
Most of the time organic agriculture has been policy led and not market led. Policy support also translates to market interest, both as signals to consumers and retailers. It was apparent at the conference that continued and increased government support is key for the development of organic in its current shape of a standardized and certified production method sold at a premium price. So what is the path ahead?
I see two divergent tracks for organic in the years ahead, one within the current market economy framework, the other outside of it.
As was clear from the conference, within the existing framework of policy and market dependence, organic can only grow substantially with massive political support. This can take various shapes. One measure is to increase direct support to organic farming. This could be argued for based on the comparatively benign effects of organic farming compared to conventional. Another version is to make conventional farming more expensive. This could be by means of banning pesticides, restricting use of synthetic fertilizers, posing size limits on farms and in particular on animal farms. In general, it is about applying the (theoretically) well established concept of the Polluter Pay Principle. After all, research shows that the external costs for damage on environment, climate and health of the food system are very high. If those costs would be included in the price of food, prices would be substantially higher. One could also stimulate the market by skipping VAT on organic foods.
Public procurement of organic foods to canteens of schools, healthcare, military etc. is also an important policy measure. It is also an interesting example of the difference between ”the market” and policy. In many municipalities in Sweden there are public goals to purchase organic foods to the canteens. The national average is that one third of the food purchased is organic. This can be compared to the share of organic in private restaurants which is a small percent.
A radical transparency in the food market, where all products would have to give detailed information about how they were produced, including the use of pesticides in the cultivation of crops or antibiotics to animals, could give organic products a competitive edge. An alternative version is that it would be conventional production that would be subject to additional inspections and certification as well as the costs associated with that.
On the consumption side, most consumers have been reached by the organic message. Of course, massive campaigns by supermarkets or public authorities may give organic another boost. The recurrent attention on the pollution and health risks with chemicals that can be noted might also give organic a new lease. Overall, I believe the market potential is not that big. The more radical ideas for flipping the terms of production between organic and conventional I sketch above are not likely to materialise within the current economic system. Especially not those leading to higher food prices.
In my view, organic agriculture and organic products have accomplished a lot and the organic sector has a lot to be proud of. By and large, however, I believe the low-hanging fruit has already been picked both on the production side and the consumption side, at least in the EU context. With public subsidies for organic agriculture for 30 years, those farms that have good conditions for organic production have already converted their farms. For farms with more difficult conditions, say a chicken producer dependent on purchased feed, grain producers on the plains or an intensive table fruit production, higher incentives are needed, or radical improvement in actual production results.
It is not only power that corrupts, markets corrupt even more. The competition with conventional farming, with other ”green”(-ish) concepts and competition within the organic market forces producers to reduce costs, by increasing scale, specialise and replace labour with machinery – essentially the same methods as in agriculture in general. There are organic farms based on simple switching from purchased agrochemicals to purchased natural inputs. If organic continues on the path of the supermarkets it will replicate conventional and continue the stride towards fewer people engaged in farming, bigger farms and less diverse production.
Standards and certification are tools for sales in anonymous competitive markets*. They have been essential for the development of the organic market (in the past, I even wrote a book about organic certification, Building trust in organic!). They also come with costs. The most obvious is of course the cost of the service as such. There are indirect costs as well, such as the cost of compliance. Certification gives you an identity, it separates ”us” from ”them”. That is good in the market place but less appealing for outreach and dialogue.
The organic pioneers, an unruly crowd, designed the certification system and felt pride and ownership of it. But, gradually, the system developed into a self-serving bureaucracy, not be evil intentions, it is just how things work. This was cemented and exacerbated by that it became embedded in regulations such as the EU regulation for organic production. Global trade also makes it incredibly difficult to change anything in the standards as you might encounter barriers for exports. In many countries, organic standards have been introduced in a semi-colonial fashion as they just had to adopt whatever standards of their main export markets.
Now the system has become a rigid straitjacket which stymies innovation. Even more, it stymies enthusiasm and ”to go organic” is not the interesting and liberating challenge it once was. New farmers seeking a change are more likely to go for something else, such as regenerative farming, permaculture or just following their own ideas. In the session in Copenhagen where I discussed the experiences of 50 years of organic development together with Renate Künast, former German Minister of Agriculture (The Greens), Patrick Holden, founder & director of Sustainable Food Trust in the UK, organic farmer and Per Kølster, former chairman Organic Denmark, brewer, I said that if I would be a young farmer today, I would not go for certified organic agriculture!**
The certified organic system is part of the capitalist economic system. It makes it ”realistic” but it also forces it to adapt to the system in order to be successful. And as the system as a whole is not sustainable, it can also not be sustainable in the long run.
This leads us to the other organic path, to initiatives outside of the normal market context. Food outside of the market is of course nothing new. For most of human history food was not a commodity to be traded. Most food was self-consumed, shared with kin or exchanged with neighbours as part of a non-market economy. Some was taken/given as tribute, tax, tithe or sacrifice. Even when food was sold for money, it was hardly traded as an anonymous commodity in a free-for-all market. Still today, many people grow, cook and consume food out of the market context, at least partially. When throwing a party or feeding the family, food is not a commodity but something very different. For me the two complementary concepts of relationship food and landscape diet point toward a very different food system. They are based on food as a commons, a human right, the main ecological link between humans and the rest of the living and a carrier of meaning rather than something to be sold.
Relationship food is based on a personal relationship between those that produce and those that consume and the management of the farm is a relationship between us and nature, formulated somewhat idealistically. Food is in this way an expression of these relationships. This can take many forms such as self-provisioning, community supported agriculture, direct marketing etc. On our small farm, the meat we produce is all sold directly to consumers, many of whom live close by and can see our cows and appreciate the associated landscape. The vegetables are sold in Reko-rings (Reko-rings have some similarities with food assemblies/Märktschwärmer/la Ruche qui di oui). We have also lately started to give away food to a charity for homeless people (this is of course facilitated by the fact that we have other incomes and that I get a pension since the last three years). I don’t see what we do on our farm as ground-breaking or particularly innovative, there are others that have gone much further along these lines. Essentially, instead of using the market as a tool to change things for the better, such as with organic certification, this strategy aims to reduce the power of the market and replace it with relationships, even if money still often is used.
Another, complementary perspective is the landscape diet, which grounds what we eat in the local ecology along the lines of what I described in some other articles (Landskap – a model for the future, The ecological economy of food). Notably, the landscape model is not only based on eating local food but also about local ecosystem management and seeing the landscape as a commons. There are other similar concepts such a bio-regions or bio-districts. Agriculture based on the organic principles fits very well in this.
Clearly, there is a long way ahead before the vision of relationship food and landscape diets will be globally adopted. I do think, however, that the ”global” argument is overused in general, change will, in any case, start locally and the notion that there are globally applicable solutions is mistaken. In the end, external factors, such as the collapse of the global financial system and global markets, energy and resource scarcity, population implosion etc. might be what make us change.
* There are some other advantages with standards and certification such as giving the farmer pride and respect, but these are by-products and not the purpose, at least not in the system as it is currently designed.
** Having said that, there are also some things that could be done to reform the existing system.
Teaser image credit: Sims Hill Shared Harvest Facebook page.