Italy Is Leader in Organic Farming
Italy has been proclaimed “Country of the Year” at BioFach, an international organic farming trade fair in Nuremberg, Germany.
According to ICE, the Italian Chamber of Commerce, the organic farming sector in Italy accounts for an annual turnover of 1.7 billion Euros with exports reaching 700 million Euros and involves about 50,000 farmers. 30% of over one million hectares of organic farming land is located in the Southern regions of Puglia and Sicily.
The trade fair opens on Thursday February 15 with the remarks of a special guest, Carlo Petrini, chairman of the International Slow Food Movement, a non-profit, eco-gastronomic organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat.
The organic movement is attracting attention all over the world. Sales in the organic sector are developing extremely positively. One of the strongest arguments in favor of organic farming is that it supposedly does not pose the threat of pesticide and chemical run-off and the resulting contamination of watersheds and drinking water.
According to Pier Paolo Chicco in Market Brief: The Organic Food Market in Italy, the organic food market in Italy has developed much more than any other in the agri-food sector during the last ten years. This trend has been boosted by several factors: consumers are more and more conscious about what they eat and pay attention not only to taste, but also to genuineness, and consider the environmental-related issues. The importance of preserving local produce and diversity is also becoming a key influence.
Despite its benefits, organic cropping faces greater management challenges. The most troubling constraint to organic cropping is when soil nutrients removed from land are not replaced to maintain soil balance. Current organic standards limit fertilizer use, placing organic fields at risk of nutrient depletion. Studies have shown organic fields to have low levels of soil phosphorus and sulfur (Rebecca Roth in Organic or Not Organic?).
