In Brazil, a study compared two systems of organic product certification implemented in São Paulo state. One system involves conventional certification by auditors accredited by the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology (INMETRO). The other is peer-to-peer certification.
In Brazil, a study compared two systems of organic product certification implemented in São Paulo state. One system involves conventional certification by auditors accredited by the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology (INMETRO). The other is peer-to-peer certification.
The study, reported in an article published in the journal Organic Agriculture, suggests that peer-to-peer certification adds the virtue of agrobiodiversity to organic farming in light of the significantly larger number of products offered by farms with this type of certification.
„This avoids reproducing in the organic context the tendency to prefer large-scale monoculture for the production of commodities“, said Tayrine Parreira Brito, first author of the article and a Ph.D. candidate at the State University of Campinas’s School of Agricultural Engineering (FEAGRI-UNICAMP).
Organic farming has expanded exponentially in many countries in recent decades. According to data collected by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and IFOAM—Organics International, the area planted with organic crops worldwide increased by over 53 million hectares between 2012 and 2022. This growth corresponds to more than twice the area of São Paulo state, which is 24,821,900 hectares.
Brazil ranks fourth worldwide in terms of organic acreage, with over 1 million hectares of organic crops. It is Latin America’s largest market for organic produce, estimated to have reached BRL 4 billion in retail sales in 2022. The number of organic farms in Brazil rose 448.63% to 26,622 between 2012 and 2021.
The market is sizable but, according to experts, however desirable the organic option may be from the standpoint of human health and to minimize the adverse environmental impacts of agriculture, it needs to be combined with other environmental and societal parameters.
