The organic industry needs a new set of goals because there’s no way it is achieving the old ones, says an industry official.
Four years ago the industry challenged itself to increase its share of the retail market to 10 percent by 2010.
It now appears that plan is far too ambitious.
“It needs to be updated. I don’t think we’re going to meet that 10 percent thing,” said Laura Telford, executive director of Canadian Organic Growers.
While the industry has no way to accurately track Canadian organic sales, it seems unlikely that it has anywhere near a 10 percent share of the market.
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According to the Organic Trade Association’s 2006 manufacturer survey, organic food sales in the United States amounted to $13.8 billion US in 2005. That represents 2.5 percent of total U.S. food sales, and the Canadian organic industry is less developed than its American counterpart.
Another goal in the March 2002 plan published by the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada was for 15 percent of farmed acreage to be organic by 2010. Considering the current share is one percent, that too seems unlikely.
A third objective was to have about one-third of Canadian organic food sales sourced domestically. Telford estimates that number is now somewhere around 10 percent.
“That would be a huge thing and that’s probably not doable,” she said.
The time has come for the industry to draft a new strategic plan. Telford said the organic value-chain roundtable would be an ideal place for those discussions to take place.
Agriculture Canada has already established roundtables for the beef, cereal grains, horticulture, oilseeds, pork, seafood and special crops industries.
The organic industry is preparing a list of approximately 15 people who will work with government officials to build “a shared strategic vision.”
The first meeting of the roundtable is scheduled for mid-November in conjunction with the 2006 Organic Connections Conference in Saskatoon.
