the world of organic agriculture - Organic Eprints

7 Crop Information and Statistics
• South America: Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Perú
• Mediterranean: Turkey and Israel
• EU: Greece
• United States of America
• Australia
According to a survey conducted by the Pesticide Action Network of the United Kingdom (PAN-
UK) in 2000/2001, Turkey and the United States were the leading producers of organic cotton,
followed by India, Perú, Uganda, Egypt, Senegal and Tanzania.
Unfortunately, the FiBL survey could not get the complete and up-to-date cotton figures for these
countries, as can be seen in the table below. Organic cotton areas in these top countries have
probably grown since 2001 and today, these areas are likely bigger than the figures presented
here.
Please note that only 19 of the 27 countries mentioned above appear in the table (not all
countries provided detailed information about land use; see also the chapter on data collection
and processing). The main conventional cotton producers like the United States or China can
also be found in the top organic cotton producing countries as could be expected.
Table 10: Organic cotton area by country
country date organic cotton area (ha)
Uganda 2001 8’980
Turkey 2003 8’000
India (provisional) 2003 7’533
Tanzania 2005 5’793
USA 2003 3’663
China 2004 2’000
Greece 2004 1’011
Pakistan 2004 880
Benin 2005 400
Paraguay 2003 300
Peru 2003 280
Israel 2004 250
Mali 2003 170
Azerbaijan 2005 144
Syria 2004 100
Kyrgyzstan 2005 98
Egypt 2005 73
Senegal 2001 53
Burkina Faso
Total cotton area covered by the
2004 30
FiBL Survey 2005 / 2006 53’314
Source: FiBL Survey 2005 / 2006. For the information sources for the individual countries please check the
continent tables in the continent chapters of this book.
Please note: Not for all cotton producing countries data were available
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