the world of organic agriculture - Organic Eprints

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The World of Organic Agriculture 2006
under fair trade labels 5 ). Some studies have pointed out that consumers in “developed countries”
are ready to pay an average of 15 to 25 percent more for organic coffee than for conventional,
and this percentage reaches the 20 to 50 percent when organic coffee has also the Fair Trade
guarantee. Thus, the combination organic and fair trade seems to lure both consumers and
farmers.
According to the FiBL survey (although data were not available for all countries) there are about
324’000 hectares of organic coffee in the world, and the main producing countries are both in
Latin America: Mexico (147’136 hectares) and Perú (75’775 hectares). In Mexico, 18.9 percent of
total coffee produced is organic, and Chiapas is the leading region producing the 53.5 percent of
total organic coffee of the country.
In Africa, Uganda, with more than 18’000 hectares, is the country where most organic coffee
is produced, but specific data is missing for other main organic coffee producers like Ethiopia,
Kenya, Tanzania and Madagascar. However, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda are producing between
Table 11: Organic coffee area by country
country date area (hectares)
Mexico 2005 147’137
Peru 2004 75’775
Indonesia 1998 26’882
Uganda 2004 18’135
Nicaragua 2004 10’282
Colombia 2003 7’531
Guatemala 2003 6’854
Brazil 2003 6’316
Dominican Rep. 2004 6’310
El Salvador 2005 6’000
Bolivia 2003 4’206
Ecuador 2005 3’484
Costa Rica 2004 2’071
Honduras 2003 1’823
Cameroon 1998 700
China 2004 260
Nepal 2004 100
Ghana 2005 55
Panama 2005 40
Sri Lanka 1998 16
Total coffee area covered by the
FiBL Survey 2005 / 2006 323’976
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: data were not available for all coffee producing countries
5 Bo van Elzakker. Director of Agroeco. 3rd International IFOAM Organic Coffee Conference. Uganda, 2004.