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OCT- Organic Industry survey details |
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Report on Tasmanian Organic Industry Survey Nov 2002 Tasmania’s unique production and marketing situation The successful agricultural and food industries in Tasmania are those that are supplying niche markets for quality products. Tasmania has been developing a clean green image and reducing chemical usage in many areas as appropriate effective management systems are developed and adopted. The organic industry is at the forefront of this shift in focus and in recent years has gained credibility as a functional and profitable method of producing high quality products which find a ready and expanding market in Australia and overseas at premium prices.Tasmania is ideally suited to organic production of many temperate crops. Organic agriculture today offers an alternative system which can produce comparable yields with a profitability and reliability equal to or better than conventional agriculture, while having a beneficial effect on the environment, and providing cleaner, more nutritious and flavoursome food for the consumer. It also offers benefits to the local economy because it uses more labour and less imported inputs than conventional agriculture. New developments in organic agriculture. We are seeing a continued transformation of the organic industry. What was once seen as a small scale cottage industry is now well on the way to becoming a broad spectrum mainstream industry characterised by a diversity of produce and small, intermediate and large scales of production. So while the smaller labour-intensive organic operations supplying special niche markets continue to thrive, larger scale organic operators are showing that mechanised broad-acre organic production for larger mainland and overseas markets is a profitable option for Tasmanian agriculture.Leading this trend have been a number of major organic enterprises which have made the decision to relocate to Tasmania from Europe, North America and the mainland in order to take advantage of the particular benefits of producing in Tasmania. Meanwhile a number of initiatives by local enterprises are also getting involved in large scale organic operations here. This trend is similar to what has already been happening in Europe and North America for some years. In these regions organic production has been expanding at rates of 20-50% per annum with a average of around 30% and this is still not keeping up with an expanding market. This expanding market is providing particular opportunities for Tasmania to develop, such as supplying fresh organic produce during the northern hemisphere off-season and maximising our image as a producer of high quality organic produce. There are few places in the world which enjoy the particular advantages of Tasmania’s climate, location and environment, and its clean green image. Nevertheless, there are still many challenges facing the organic industry in Tasmania, and it is anticipated these will be addressed in a strategic plan to be developed by the industry during a series of workshops throughout state during April 2003. Tasmanian Organic Industry Survey November 2002 In November 2002 a survey questionnaire was sent to 86 organic properties in Tasmania which were either certified as organic , in conversion to organic, or were in the process of obtaining certification.While the response to the survey by 39 participants or 45% would generally be regarded as a very good response as surveys go, unfortunately it was not sufficient to give a comprehensive picture of the whole of the Tasmanian organic industry, and does not provide a firm figure for the total of the state’s organic production. In a previous survey in May 2001 we were able to get a much higher response, 82.8% of certified producers, which enabled us to develop a reasonably accurate assessment of Tasmanian organic production. This latest survey was intended to follow up on the results of that previous survey and obtain a picture of how the Tasmanian industry is developing. The best estimate for the current total Tasmanian certified production we can derive is a pro rata calculation based on information from certifying organisations that a total of 3922ha were in certified production for 2001-2, while our Nov 2002 survey respondents total area was 2304ha. On this basis we get an estimated total Tasmanian organic production for 2001-2 of approximately $4,000,000, which represents an 18% increase over our previous 2000-2001 total of $3,386,000. This may well be a conservative estimate because there were a number of significant organic producers who did not respond to our survey, but without additional information we would be reluctant to make a higher estimate. As for an estimate for total production for 2002-3 , while our survey results indicated a marked increase in production, it would not be realistic to extrapolate those figures without adjusting for a small number of respondents who indicated a very large increase in production, while the general trend among the rest was for a rather smaller increase in production. On that basis we reach an estimated production of approximately $6,000,000 for the year 2002-3. This latest survey requested a wide range of information from producers. However we are somewhat constrained in our ability to present full details of the results because of the need to preserve individual confidentiality. The first three tables below give some comparisons with previous survey results. The next four tables below give as comprehensive picture of the survey results as we are able to within the limitations of confidentiality. Products listed by survey respondents Raw products Apples, apricots, beans, beef cattle, beeswax, blueberries, brassicas, broccoli, cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, celery, cherries, day old chicks, dried herbs, eggs, grain, herbs, garlic, grapes, hay, honey, lemons, mixed vegetables, myrtus berries, olives, onions, pears, plums, potatoes, pumpkins, radicchio, raspberries, sheep, sheep milk, stone fruit, strawberries, walnuts. Value added products Accommodation, cheese, herbal extracts, herbal teas, fruit juice, meat, muesli, wine, yoghourt. Table 1 - Response To Surveys
Table 2 - Area in Organic Production and Average Farm Size
Table 3 – Farmgate Value of Organic Production
Table 4 - Certifiers of 39 organic farms responding to OCT Survey Nov 2002
Table 5 - Area of 39 organic farms responding to OCT Survey Nov 2002 (excluding non-organic areas of properties with partial certification)
Table 6 - Regional distribution of employment and value of production by 39 certified organic farms responding to OCT Survey Nov 2002 Table 7 - Principal market outlets for 39 certified organic farms responding to OCT Survey Nov 2002 Table 8 - Volume and value of products certified organically grown by the 39 respondents to OCT Survey Nov 2002 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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