Australia

Abstract

Australia has seen even more growth in 2017 in the area of pastoral land under certified organic management, bringing the total certified organic area to about 35 million hectares. The number of certified organic primary producers fell slightly in 2017 to 1,998 producers, though organic processor and handler numbers were up. With the usual caveats around the difficulties of sourcing robust data, the total value of the organic market in Australia for Australian produced goods is estimated to be 2.4 billion Australian dollars (retail sales and exports). Using a limited data set, it is estimated that the overall volume (in metric tons) of Australian-grown organic products exported to other countries decreased slightly by 3 percent between 2016 and 2017, probably a result of the extreme drought conditions experienced by eastern Australia. The regulatory and governance arrangements in the certified organic sector in Australia have remained stable since the last World of Organic Yearbook (Lawson et al. 2018). Rationalization of the regulatory framework remains a work in progress. A major recent achievement for the organic sector in Australia has been the establishment of the Centre for Organics Research at Southern Cross University.