Soaring appetite for organic stretches farmers

Exploding consumer hunger for organic food has left retailers struggling to meet the growing demand.

Organic grower Andrew Smith at his orchard in Tasmania’s Huon Valley: ‘There’s nothing easy about it’. Picture: Chris Crerar

An exploding consumer appetite for organic food has left retailers struggling to meet demand.

Woolworths last night launched a $30 million Organic Growth Fund to encourage more farmers to make the switch from chemicals to organic production.

The fund will offer existing organic farmers grants and low-­interest loans to expand, and help others to start the costly three-year conversion to fully ­accredited organic status.

Woolworths, which is struggling to meet a sustained 20 per cent annual jump in demand for its organic produce, is also offering organic farmers long-term supply contracts at premium ­prices.

Paul Turner, Woolworths’ head of fresh produce, said the $1 billion organic farming industry in Australia still represented less than 2 per cent of total food production, while overseas markets had at least a 5 per cent ­organic sector by size.

“So here in Australia we are still seeing emerging trends and growing customer demand, and we can only supply about 70 per cent of that,” he said, adding that it was particularly hard to source enough apples, avocados and berries.

Australia’s biggest organic apple producer, Tasmania’s R&R Smith, was last night handed a $500,000 grant by the new Woolworths organic fund to expand production and introduce a Belgian apple variety which lasts longer in cool storage.

Fourth-generation Tasman­ian apple grower Andrew Smith, who farms 80ha of organic land, ­admitted it was difficult making the switch.

“There’s nothing easy about it,” said Mr Smith, who sells about 80 per cent of his apples through Woolworths’ Macro ­organic brand. “It cost us a lot too. For the first few years … the demand wasn’t there to sell all of what we did grow with an organic premium. But every year now our production has come back (under the organic system) to the point where the yields are not much different to before.”