WASHINGTON, May 15, 2014 -- According to the latest survey on the organic industry from the Organic Trade Association (OTA), sales of organic products in the United States had their fastest growth rate in five years. Sales increased to $35.1 billion in 2013, up 11.5 percent from the previous year’s $31.5 billion.
The OTA survey projects that growth rates over the next two years will keep this pace or slightly exceed it.
“The U.S. organic market is experiencing strong expansion, with organic food and farming continuing to gain in popularity. Consumers are making the correlation between what we eat and our health, and that knowledge is spurring heightened consumer interest in organic products,” said Laura Batcha, executive director and CEO of OTA.
However, OTA noted that farmland in the United States is not being converted to organic at the pace needed to meet demand for organic.
“Supplies of organic feed and organic grain have been tight and costly, which could limit growth especially in the organic dairy and meat sectors,” the announcement stated.
OTA’s Organic Industry Survey was conducted by Nutrition Business Journal. Over 200 companies responded to the survey, which was conducted this year from January 27 through April 4. OTA said organic food first broke through the $30 billion mark in 2012 and now account for more than 4% of the $760 billion annual food sales in the United States.
According to USDA’s 2012 Census of Agriculture released this month shows that organic production amounts to 0.8 percent of the $394.6 billion value of nationwide agricultural production. The 2012 census showed organic product sales increased 82 percent since 2007.
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