Benchmark study: global organic food insight

According to the study conducted by Pennsylvania State University's Dr. Edward Jaenicke, associate professor of agricultural economics, released Wednesday by the Organic Trade Association (OTA), exports of U.S. organic foods as well as imports of organic into the U.S. have risen significantly in the past few years. This watershed report compiles, for the first time ever, a comprehensive picture of the officially tracked organic food products sold by U.S. exporters and bought by U.S. importers.

In 2014, American organic growers sold more than $550 million worth of products tracked by the U.S. government through organic export codes to buyers around the world, with the United States rightly claiming the position of global supplier for fresh organic produce.

Imports of organic products outpaced exports, amounting to nearly $1.3 billion in 2014. The import picture tells two stories: one of an increasing appetite by Americans for organic foods not widely produced in this country, like coffee, bananas, mangoes, olive oil, to name a few, and the second story of a growing domestic market for organic feed grains but insufficient home-grown organic crops to meet that demand.

Powered by the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Office of the U.S Trade Representative, the OTA-commissioned study analyzes trends in international trade for those organic products the U.S. government currently tracks: organic products that have been assigned a harmonized tariff schedule code. The products analyzed represent the major organic foods bought and sold abroad.

A global appetite for U.S. organic
Apples, lettuce, grapes, spinach and strawberries are the top five organic products exported by the United States. Exports of organic apples alone jumped 40 percent in 2014 from the previous year, compared to a small three percent growth rate for non-organic apple exports. In fact, the pace of growth for the exports of almost all of the 26 organic products tracked was markedly higher than that of their non-organic counterparts.

Exports of organic produce account for an increasingly greater proportion of total exports. Of all the cherry tomatoes exported by the U.S., for example, 42 percent are organic; 33 percent of the spinach exports are organic, along with 27 percent of the onions, and 23 percent of the carrots.

"We found that many of the American-grown organic products are really out-performing in the export market," said Monique Marez, OTA's Associate Director for International Trade. "This shows a thirst for organic products—and specifically for U.S. organic products—that is resonating around the world."

Visit www.ota.com for more information.