China-Australia: Organic opportunities
2013
Paull, John
A century ago, China’s sustainable agricultural practices were documented and praised by US Professor of Agriculture, Franklin King, for the successful stewardship of agricultural land over four millennia. Over the past decade, Australia and China have converted more land to organic agriculture than any other of the 160 countries reporting organic agriculture statistics (for Australia, 4.3 m newly converted hectares, and for China, 1.8 m hectares). Australia accounts for about a third of the world’s certified organic agriculture hectares. China’s ‘economic miracle’ has been at the great cost of environmental degradation. There is a role for the development of organic agriculture in China to help achieve a clean green future. Added to this, consumers want safe food and they attribute a premium price to certified organic food. This paper presents a spectrum of indices of organics leadership and reveals great opportunities for growth in the organics sector. There are opportunities for the development of organic aquaculture, organic wildculture, organic forestry, for growing the domestic market and per capita organic consumption, and for publishing organics research. Organic accounts for 0.86% of global agricultural land, Australia’s agricultural land is 2.93% certified organic, and for China the figure is 0.36% which offers plenty of room for improvement. China’s prevailing levels of pollution call for massive remediation action, and the uptake of organic agriculture can be one component of the solution to restoring China’s environment to a healthy state and to providing safe food for consumers.
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