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Switzerland: Market grows by seven percent in 2009

Recently, the Swiss organic umbrella organisation Bio Suisse presented the 2009 data on organic agriculture. Whereas the market grew in 2009, the number of organic farms and the organic agricultural land decreased.

Graph Development Swiss organic market

Development of the organic market in Switzerland by marketing channel. Source: Bio Suisse 2010. Graph: FiBL

The Swiss organic market continued to grow in 2009. It grew by 7 percent and is now worth 1.55 billion Swiss Francs or more than 1 billion Euros. Coop holds approximately 50 percent of the market and Migros 25 percent. The discounters Aldi and Lidl have a market share of 2.6 percent.

The number of farms and organic agricultural land has decreased slightly, 120'000 hectares (including alpine pastures) are organic, constituting around 11 percent of the total agricultural land. According to the global organic survey by IFOAM and FiBL, Switzerland held place 4 in the world in 2008 regarding the share of the organic agricultural land.

In order to increase supply, Bio Suisse launched the so-called "bio offensive" with which it hopes to convince farmers to convert to organic farming. Proposed measures are training and education, PR and others.

Bio Suisse is also calling for the government to implement an action plan for organic food and farming. Other than most European countries, Switzerland does currently not have an action plan. 

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