The current figures in brief (details are available at the Bio Suisse Homepage):
Market
The organic market showed strong growth in 2008. The turnover with organic products grow by 11.2 % and was at 1.44 billion Swiss Francs (almost 1 billion Euros), constituting 4.9 % of the total Swiss market. The growth was twice at much as that of the general food market which grew by 5.6 %. The per capita consumption was 190 Swiss Francs or 126 Euros.
Three quarters of the organic food was sold by the two major supermarket chains Coop (50 % market share) and Migros (24 % market share). Growth was also reported for direct marketing (5.1 %) and the specialized retail trade (15.6 % market share). Discounters have become players on the organic market but with a turnover of 7 million Swiss Francs, their share is still very modest.
Producers and land under organic management
In 2008, 5589 producers were working according to the standards of Bio Suisse. This represents 10.7 % of all farms in Switzerland. In addition to these farms, there area 522 farms that work according to the Swiss organic law without being certified by Bio Suisse. So the total number of organic farms is 6111, constituting 11.9 % of all farms. This is a 0.6 % higher share compared to the previous year.
The total organic land is 121‘000 hectares, constituing 11.4 percent of the agricultural land. Of these, 112'000 hectares are managed by Bio Suisse farms.
More information
- Bio Suisse press release of March 24, 2009 (German): Bio wächst rasant
- Bio Suisse press release of March 24, 2009 (German): Graphs
- FiBL study on the societal and environmental benefits of organic agriculture (German) Gesellschaftliche Leistungen der biologischen Landwirtschaft
- Releated News of March 17, 2009: IFOAM: Markus Arbenz new executive director
- Organic-World.Net: Switzerland
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