The organic market is growing, but not all organic farmers are interested to continue

Annual sales of organic products in Germany more than trebled since 2000, while the number of organic farms nearly doubled within the last decade. In 2010 a total number of 16,532 organic farms managed 941,480 ha organically cultivated area.  

These figures, however, do not provide information about farms leaving the organic sector and turning back to conventional methods. A total number of 2,902 organic farms reverted to conventional methods between 2003 and 2010. This corresponds to an annual average of 3.3 percent of the organic farms. 

A study of the Thünen Institute indicates that economic motives, a lack of development prospects or problems with organic rules and controls are the main factors, which can lead to reversion.

Relatively high reversion quotas can be found among sheep, goat and beef farms. Most reverting farms are managed part-time and farm a rather small agricultural area. Moreover, older managers (aged 55 years and over) as well as farmers without formal agricultural education turn back to conventional methods more often than other colleagues. Most of the reverting farmers decide to give up organic farming during the first or second funding period. However, on farms, which are members of an organic farming association, reversion is less likely.

A complete report in German can be downloaded here