Trying to determine how many acres Canada seeds to organic grain is akin to estimating how many kernels of wheat are sitting in a bin come spring.
An accurate estimate would require polling the 60-plus companies that certify organic farmers in this country, said Deanna Harrison, an Agriculture Canada market analyst who recently co-wrote a report on the country’s organic grain and oilseed industry.
The plethora of certifying bodies and standards has also created uncertainty among buyers of organic grains as to the uniformity of the Canadian crop.
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“It’s very much a buyer-beware market,” said Harrison. “There has to be more regulations put in place so that both the local consumer and the international buyer can be guaranteed that the grain that they are purchasing is truly certified organic.”
As of July 1, 1999, a number of member states of the European Union stopped importing organic products that were not verified by certification bodies compliant with the ISO Guide 65, an internationally accepted quality assurance standard. Although a few organic bodies have applied for ISO certification, nobody has the ability to use that stamp now.
Harrison said the certification process is in a state of flux and should be streamlined.
The Canadian Wheat Board is also pushing for central certification. In March it released a discussion paper about the organic industry, which said, “at this time, fragmentation of the industry remains a significant hurdle.”
Gord Price, the board’s domestic marketing manager, said it’s difficult to sell a crop when you can’t give buyers an accurate picture of the quantity and quality of organic wheat and durum available.
Despite the difficulty of trying to ascertain seeded acreage statistics, Harrison was able to establish an annual production estimate for Canada’s organic crop of 140,000 tonnes, most of it concentrated in Western Canada.
Farmers grow everything from organic canola, flax and sunflowers to organic rye and buckwheat. But wheat and durum are by far the biggest crops, comprising half the country’s organic output.
According to figures provided by the wheat board, Canada sold 16,107 tonnes of organic wheat and durum during the 1998-99 crop year. Nearly 85 percent of the sales were to Europe and the United States. A small amount (2,215 tonnes) was consumed domestically and less than 500 tonnes was exported to the Asia-Pacific region.
The board is developing an organic marketing policy. The agency said many of its serious, mainstream customers have expressed an interest in Canadian organic wheat.
“Whether they’re willing to pay the premium or not is another story,” said Price.
Harrison said the organic industry is growing at an estimated rate of 20 percent annually, but it still represents less than half of one percent of the 62 million tonnes of conventional grains and oilseeds produced each year.
“It’s definitely a viable part of the (grains and oilseeds) industry, but it’s not very large.”
The value of the organic industry has doubled to $1 billion since 1995.
Demand increasing
Harrison said the medium-term outlook for the industry is healthy. She expects production of organic grains and oilseeds to increase by 500 percent in the next five to eight years, driven by consumer demand.
There is always a lag between demand and supply because it takes producers three years to become certified organic. Right now Canada has about 1,500 registered organic producers, while hundreds more are unregistered.
Harrison expects production numbers to drop slightly for the 2000-2001 crop, because farmers had exceptional yields last year. She expects the crop to be somewhere in the range of 130,000 tonnes, assuming a return to normal moisture conditions.
