Danish organic food is still popular with foreign consumers, according to new figures from Statistics Denmark. Exports of organic food are under pressure due to high inflation, but almost 500 million euros (3.5 billion DKK) worth of organic food was exported last year.
Although there is slightly less organic production, there is the largest organic export ever, reports Landbrug & Fødeverer.
The most important Danish export goods are still dairy products and meat. In addition, vegetables and fruit and eggs were also exported in 2023. Furthermore, L&F reports that the export of organic drinks – mainly plant-based drinks – increased by 39 percent.
The most important export markets were, besides Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, distant markets like China and the USA. Organic products worth DKK 1.7 billion were exported to the largest market, Germany, almost half of the total export
The share of organic farms and the organic area decreased again last year in Denmark. The total organic area decreased from 11.7% to 11.4% of the production area, while the number of organic farms also decreased for the second year in a row.
This development is considered worrying by the organic sector, especially now that the Danish government has set ambitious targets to double organic production by 2030. The decline in organic farming is symptomatic of broader ecological problems in Denmark.
The country is struggling with a deterioration in the quality of nature, with the water in the many fjords suffering particularly badly from nitrogen pollution. The water in almost all coastal areas is in a poor ecological condition due to nitrogen leaching. Scientists state that agriculture is a major cause of these problems. Denmark (like the Netherlands) will probably not be able to meet tightened European water quality standards in 2027.
This situation has led to a growing awareness in Danish politics and broad layers of society that urgent action is needed to protect nature, the environment and the climate. This has recently resulted in a groundbreaking agricultural agreement, which includes the introduction of a CO2 tax for agriculture and livestock farming (which already exists for industry).
It is striking that even most national agricultural umbrella organisations agreed to reduce the agricultural area by about ten percent, and to large-scale afforestation of vacant agricultural land. The recent Danish tripartite agricultural agreement, in which farmers, government, industry and environmental organisations jointly arrived at an agricultural vision for the future, is internationally praised as an example of effective cooperation.
Denmark, like the Netherlands, has an intensive agricultural sector, a high dependence on food exports and still a major nitrogen problem. Although the Netherlands has slightly less agricultural land (more than half of the land area, compared to almost two-thirds in Denmark), the challenges in both countries are similar: poor water quality and high pressure on the quality of natural areas.
While in the Netherlands farmer protests dominated and blocked nitrogen discussions for years, in Denmark there has so far been relatively little resistance to a phased transition in agriculture.