Agriculture Minister Michaela Kaniber (CSU) is appealing to consumers to buy more organic food. Without strong demand from consumers, the goal of cultivating 30 percent of the agricultural area in Bavaria organically by 2030 would be difficult to achieve. “We cannot decree organic farming from above,” said Kaniber at the Biofach trade fair in Nuremberg. “Food is not produced for shop windows or museums. Organic farming can only grow if the market for organic products develops accordingly.”
Like the food retail sector as a whole, the organic sector is suffering from high inflation and price increases as a result of the energy crisis and the war in Ukraine. According to the State Association for Organic Farming (LVÖ), organic customers were increasingly turning to cheaper products in the first half of 2022. The consequences for the organic sector were very different. While sales in the organic food trade have fallen significantly in some cases, discounters have even recorded organic growth. In addition, organic sales also declined because many people are now eating more in canteens and restaurants after the corona pandemic – where organic has only rarely been on the menu so far. According to the LVÖ, the organic sector is still clearly up compared to the pre-Corona period.
According to Kaniber, 570 farmers across Bavaria switched to organic in 2021, and the organically managed agricultural land grew by 24,000 hectares. This means that 11,700 farms with a total of 411,000 hectares of agricultural land are now working according to organic criteria. That corresponds to eleven percent of the farms and 13 percent of the agricultural land in Bavaria. The spokeswoman for the “People’s Request for Biodiversity – Save the Bees” and ÖDP politician Agnes Becker recently complained that the Free State is increasingly falling behind in the expansion of organic farming. She called for a mandatory quota of 30 percent organic meals in the canteens of the Free State. Such a quota would open up an additional market for the industry and raise consumer awareness of organic.