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Organic WorldStatisticsData collection

Data collection on organic agriculture world-wide

About the data collection and the global survey on organic farming

The annual survey on organic agriculture world-wide is carried out by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL in collaboration with partners such as the Agricultural Market Information Company (AMI) and the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of in Bari (IAMB). Numerous experts from more than 180 countries are contributing to the data collection.

The data collection activities on organic agriculture worldwide have been funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO, the International Trade Centre (ITC) since 2008, and NürnbergMesse, the organisers of BIOFACH Organic Trade Fair, who have supported the survey and the yearbook "The World of Organic Agriculture" since 2000. In 2019, the Sustainability Fund of Coop Switzerland joined as a supporter.

In the years 2011-2013, European data collection with a focus on market data was carried out in the framework of the European-funded project OrganicDataNetwork.

In the yearbook The World of Organic Agriculture the data collected in the framework of the survey are presented annually at the BIOFACH Organic Trade Fair.

The following information is collected in the frame of the annual survey on organic agriculture worldwide:

  • area data
  • livestock data
  • production
  • land use and crops
  • operators
  • market data (retail sales)
  • international trade data

Some history

The global organic survey was initiated by the former organizers and initiators of BIOFACH, Sunder und Rottner, who approached the German Foundation Ecology & Agriculture SOEL in 1999 and asked them, if they could perform data collection on organic agriculture world-wide. (On the history of BIOFACH see article in the Eve magazine).

Since then the survey has been carried out by SOEL (until 2004) and FiBL (since 2005).

IFOAM - Organics International became a partner in the data collection activities in 2007; since that time the data from sub-Saharan Africa are collected by the IFOAM Africa Office.

Since 2000 the latest global organic figures have been presented annually at the BIOFACH Fair in Nuremberg, of which IFOAM - Organics International is the patron.

SECO ITC project

From 2008 to 2011 the data collection activities were  supported under a project of the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the Swiss State Secretariat of Economic Affairs (SECO). Under this project the following activities were funded:

  • Building of a web based data collection tool
  • Complete redesign of the www.organic-world.net homepage (as a tool for the web based data collection, to provide the statistical material and graphs as well as backgound information
  • Data collection and processing
  • Overview of data availability world-wide
  • Dissemination activities

Under the current project (2013-2016), again supported by the Swiss State Secretariat of Economic Affairs (SECO) and International Trade Centre (ITC) data collection is expanded to further Voluntary Sustainability Standards. Key parters are ITC and the State of Sustainability Initiatives (SSI). More information about this project is available at the FiBL website.

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