Wary EU consumers flock to organic food

Food scares, the spread of mass intensified agricultural farming and concern for the environment have combined to spark a back-to-basics reaction leading to an upsurge in organic produce in the last ten years.

In the 1980s organic farming was only just starting to come into its own with organic food only found in specialised shops and for a very small range of products.

Nowadays supermarkets have whole shelves dedicated to organic food with consumers buying it for a range of reasons, including ethical, environmental and health concerns - reflecting an increase of almost a third in organic areas in the EU since 1999.

Food and animal health scares

One of the biggest contributions to the upsurge was food and animal health scares particularly the BSE crisis in the mid 1990s.

Lurid headlines about the link between 'mad cow disease' and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, were then followed by articles detailing hormones that could be found in beef, foot and mouth disease in cattle, cancer-causing dioxines in the food chain, a scare in the UK over an industrial food colouring linked to cancer, and this year bird flu.

Coupled with this was a rising sense of public consciousness about the effect of high intensity farming - particularly in the 1980s heyday of the Common Agricultural Policy - on the environment.

According to OECD figures, people choose to buy organic mostly because of a perceived reduced health risk (36%).

The next most common reason for buying it is because it is thought to taste better (31%), followed by those who think it is more 'natural' (25%) to those who buy it to avoid GMOs (12%) and finally those who do it to help protect the environment (5%).

For its part, Brussels stepped into the organic debate in the early 1990s, rendering the term organic something governed by EU law.

The 1992 regulation defines the process of organic farming as well as the labelling, process, inspection and marketing of organic produce within the bloc.

Organic farming generally means avoiding using man-made or chemical fertilisers, using traditional methods such as crop rotation and avoiding chemical pesticides.

Austrians lead in organic

According to European Commission statistics, there are around 5.7 million hectares of certified organic land in the EU, representing about 3.6% of total agricultural space.

Of all the 25 member states, Italy has the most organic land with around a fifth of the total or around 44,000 farms, with the highest turnover from organic food products in Denmark (5%) followed by Sweden (3%) and Germany (2.6%).

Austria has the highest percentage of organically farmed agricultural land in Europe, with around 10 percent of Austrian farms registered as organic.

The market for organic food represented about €11 billion in 2004 or around one twentieth of 'normal' farm production - with Germans spending the most - accounting for 30% of the EU's total spending in the area.

Organic at a premium

Despite the upward trend, organic farming has its fair share of critics who wonder about proven health benefits.

Organic food was given a boost last year when the Danish Institute of Agricultural Research showed that organic milk has higher levels of vitamin E, omega 3 essential fatty acids and antioxidants, which help beat infections.

There have also been some wins on the production side. A European study in 2005 identified up to ten varieties of potatoes, grown without chemicals, which were resistant to the deadly potato disease, the blight.

However, buying organic still tends to be expensive.

According to a commission report "as a general rule, organic products receive a higher price than conventional products".

Products such as wheat, apples, pork and beef tending to get the highest premiums, with milk, eggs and potatoes also featuring high on the list.

Price hikes for organic produce are generally greater in southern Europe where the organic market is relatively small.

An undercover investigation in Britain this year revealed butchers illegally selling meat as organic produce, taking advantage of the higher price charged for its perceived healthy image.

Chris Haskins, who headed Britain's Rural Recovery Task Force following the foot-and-mouth crisis, believes that customers are generally not willing to pay the higher price unless it can be proven they get better texture, flavour and safety.

Advising farmers against jumping onto the organic farming bandwagon he said "Farmers should assess the business case for organic and avoid being beguiled by encouraging noises from retailers and organic farming evangelists".