Organics Olympiad 2016: Global Indices of Leadership in Organic Agriculture

: Organic production (including agriculture, wild culture, forestry and aquaculture) is a worldwide phenomenon that is practiced in at least 172 countries. The Organics Olympiad presents 14 indices of global organics leadership, each at three levels (Gold, Silver and Bronze). The Organics Olympiad of 2016 yields 29 countries as global organics leaders, and confirms that organics leadership is diversely distributed across countries, large and small, rich and poor, developed and less so, and cuts across linguistic, ethnic and cultural boundaries. Australia continues to lead the world in organic agriculture hectares. Australia also leads in the increase of organic hectares over the past four years (since the Organics Olympiad 2012) and in the number of WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) hosts. Finlandleads in organic wild culture hectares. Vietnam leads in organic aquaculture hectares, and Tunisia leads in organic forest hectares. Germany leads in biodynamic hectares, as well as with the number of members of IFOAM-Organics International. India leads for the number of organic producers. The Falkland Islands (Malvinas) leads in terms of the percentage agricultural land dedicated as organic. Switzerland leads with the value of organics consumption per capita. USA leads in the value of the organics market. Denmark leads in the publishing of organics research papers over the past four years. Namibia leads in the percentage increase in organic hectares over the past four years. The overall global organics leaders, on the basis of aggregated scores, are Australia, Germany, and Switzerland, in positions one, two and three, respectively. This study demonstrates the successful global diffusion of organics, and identifies that leadership lessons can be available from a broad diversity of countries. Key implications are identified.


Introduction
The great retreat of global organic agriculture, from its historical position of global dominance, dates from 1909 with the development of the Haber Bosch method of making industrial quantities of synthetic fertilizer (Smil, 2001). This retreat was then reinforced by the rapid development of the chemical industry in the twentieth century, and the impetus given by two world wars in creating toxic chemicals for warfare and then 'successfully' repurposing chemicals for agriculture. Rudolf Steiner made the call in 1924 for an agriculture differentiated from the prevailing march of chemical agriculture, and his call led to the development of biodynamic agriculture (Paull, 2011a;Pfeiffer, 1938;Steiner, 1924). Lord North bourne hosted a conference on his farm in Kent in 1939 (Paull, 2011b) and, in the following year, published his manifesto of what he dubbed 'organic farming' and in which he framed a contest of 'organic versus chemical farming' (Northbourne, 1940;Paull, 2014). These were major milestones in the quest to restore organic agricultural practices to mainstream agriculture. Despite nine decades of activism, organic agriculture is reported as just 0.99% of world agriculture (Willer & Lernoud, 2016).
In the view of these pioneers of organic agriculture, the mission of the organics movement is to restore organic agriculture as the global dominant agriculture. Steiner urged his followers to win converts by demonstrating the superior outcomes of organic over chemical agriculture (Steiner, 1924). Northbourne was under no illusions as to the magnitude of the task, just how long it might take, and with no guarantee of success: "It is a task for generations of concentrated effort, slow and laborious, needing all available skill and resources ... A combination of cooperation and individual effort ... And those engaged will be fighting a rearguard action for many decades, perhaps for centuries" (Northbourne, 1940, p.115). Organic production excludes the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), nanotechnology, and food irradiation. Consumers purchase organic food for reasons of health, environment and animal welfare (ACNielsen, 2005). A French study reported that organic food was more nutrient-dense, that 94-100% of organic food samples were pesticide-free, that those samples testing positive for residues were below the regulated maximum residual level (MRL), and that this contrasted with the results for nonorganic food in which 17-50% of samples contained pesticide residues (Lairon, 2010). Children consuming an organic food diet show reduced pesticide exposure and a lower body burden of pesticides (Curl, Fenske, & Elgehun, 2003). Coinciding with the year of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (www.rio2016.com), the Organics Olympiad 2016 identifies global leaders in the organics sector. Organics Olympiads have previously appeared (Paull, 2008(Paull, , 2011c(Paull, , 2012 and past Olympiads offer some comparisons to the present state of organics leadership.

Methodology
Organic food and agriculture statistics are generally not disaggregated by government agencies from the whole of the food and agriculture sectors, although this is slowly changing. The present study draws on NGO data sets from multiple sources: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL); Demeter International; the International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems (ICROFS); IFOAM-Organics International; and WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) national groups. Fourteen indices of organics leadership are identified, and for each index, the top three countries are 'awarded' a Gold, Silver or Bronze 'medal', for ranking first, second or third respectively. This process is an opportunity for identifying a range of leadership within the global organics sector. The results are then weighted (Gold=3, Silver=2, Bronze=1) to produce a ranked listing of global organics leaders.

Organics Olympiad Medals
Agriculture: The global total for certified organically managed agricultural land is 43,668,229 hectares (this is an increase of 17.9% since the Organics Olympiad 2012 (Paull, 2012)). Australia now accounts for 39.3% of the world's organic agriculture land (up from 32.2% from the 2012 figure). The three lead countries, Australia, Argentina and USA, together account for over half (51.3%) of the world's certified organic agriculture land (Table 1) (this represents a consolidation of leadership and it is up from the 48.9% of the Organics Olympiad 2012).   (Table 3). Brazil and China appeared in previous Organics Olympiads (Paull, 2011c(Paull, , 2012 but they currently report no organic aquaculture.  (Table 4). Only five countries report organic forestry statistics, the three leaders together with Azerbaijan and Canada. In the Organics Olympiad 2012, Iceland and Malawi appeared as leaders but these two countries currently report no organic forest hectares.  (Paull, 2011a). According to the certifier Demeter-International, there are 161,074 certified biodynamic hectares across 60 countries (up 11.5% from the144, 497 biodynamic agricultural hectares, and up from 48 countries of the Organics Olympiad 2012). Germany is the leading country for biodynamic and it accounts for 45.1% of the global hectares total. The leading three countries, Germany, Italy and France together account for 58.3% of the world's biodynamic hectares (Table 5) (previously the top three countries, which then included India and not France) accounted for56.7% of the global biodynamic total). No data is available on this parameter for Australia.    Per Capita Consumption: European countries lead in the per capita consumption of organics with Switzerland in position one (previously Denmark) with an annual spend of €221 per capita, followed by Luxembourg and Denmark (Table 9).  (Paull, 2010). It is based in Bonn, Germany, and is the peak international organization for the certified organics sector, with 787 affiliated organizations as members from 119 countries (down from 804 affiliates, and up from 111 countries). The membership includes organic certifiers, and research and other organizations participating in the organics sector. Germany leads with a membership of 64, followed by China, and the India (Table 10). If the Hong Kong affiliates (N=7) are aggregated with the China affiliates (N=57) this would put China and Germany on a par with 64 affiliates each.  (Table 11). These three countries together account for 91.4% of the global increase in organic agriculture hectares reported over the past four years. Percentage Increase: There has been a global 17.9% increase in certified organic agriculture hectares since the Organics Olympiad 2012. This increase has been very uneven across organic reporting countries with some countries reporting decreases while some have increased their hectares by thousands of percent. Namibia, from a low base, has reported an increase in excess of 24,000% increase (from 124 ha to 30,082 ha), Fiji has reported an increase in excess of 9,000% (from 100 ha to 9218 ha), and Myanmar has reported an increase in excess of 8,000% (from 60 ha to 5320 ha) (Table 12).  (WWOOF UK, 2016).WWOOF is now an international movement with hosts in more than 55 countries (WWOOF, 2012). WWOOF has grown and prospered in the process of its international diffusion. Australia has 2,600 hosts (WWOOF Australia, 2016), New Zealand has 2,340 hosts (Millener, 2016), and the USA has 2,052 hosts (WWOOF USA, 2016) (Table 13).  Table 14 is a record of the research output since the Organics Olympiad 2012 and the tabulation of increments preserves the same three countries but reverses the order, with Switzerland taking a strong lead for organics research outputs.  Tables 1 to 14 are presented as an aggregated medal tally in  Table 15. Twenty nine countries are identified as organics leaders, each scoring at least a single medal. In this Olympiad, 42 medals are in contention. Both Germany and USA scored four medals each indicating a breadth of leadership (Table 15). For each country appearing in the medal tally, a weighted score is presented, with the following weightings applied to medals: Gold=3; Silver=2; Bronze=1. Thus, for this Olympiad, there are a total of 84 points in contention. No country scored more than a weighted score of nine (Table 15). Three gold medals put Australia in the lead in the Organics Olympiad 2016 results. Germany, with four medals, secured the second place. Switzerland ranked in third place with two Gold medals. India and the USA ranked in equal fourth place each with a Gold and two Bronze medals (Table 15).

Discussion and Conclusion
The Organics Olympiad 2016 bears witness that the current leadership of the organics movement is a world of great diversity -that is a cause for optimism and celebration. The 29 countries that score medals in the Organics Olympiad 2016 include countries large and small, developed and developing, rich and poor, geographically, ethnically and linguistically diverse, with countries from Oceania, Africa, Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, and North and South America. The 29 leaders identified in the Organics Olympiad 2016 are exemplars worthy of emulation as they each exhibit success in the uptake of organic practices. The statistics used, with the exception of the WWOOF and ICROFS statistics (Figs 13&14) are limited to certified organic. As such they are underestimates -there are numerous organic enterprises that are not certified (for example farms described in : Fawcett, 2016;Hudson, 2016;McLeod, 2016;& Odhong et al., 2015)and they are as a consequence, not recorded in certified organics statistics. So, while the achievements of the organic agriculture movement are somewhat modest, reported as 0.99% of world agricultural land, they are nevertheless not as modest as the statistics of the organics sector suggest.
The earliest pioneers of organic agriculture (e.g. Northbourne, 1940;Pfeiffer, 1938;Steiner, 1924) had visions unconstrained by the paradigm of certification, which came long after their advocacy. It may be that certified organics is the tip of an organics iceberg (in which naked organics, i.e. organics without certification), may exceed, and perhaps greatly exceed, certified organics). In any event, the world of certified organics is certainly the tip of the organics potential, which is the 99% of global agriculture which is not certified organic, and which is (probably) mostly chemical agriculture. The diversity of the leadership in the Organics Olympiad 2016 bodes well in the global march for the uptake of organic agriculture. The Indian state of Sikkim is reportedly now 100% organic (Oberst, 2016;Seetharaman, 2016). The Indian states of Kerala, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh are aiming to achieve 100% organic status (Oberst, 2016;Vijayan, 2007). Bhutan has also set the bar high aiming to become 100% organic (Paull, 2013). France has set a goal to be 20% organic by 2020 (Lichfield, 2007).The Soil Association has proposed the goal for the UK of "Organic by 2050" (Soil Association, 2009). Russia has a stated the intention of becoming a world leader in organic food (Case, 2015).The Atlas of Organics presents visual displays of the successful global diffusion of organics (Paull & Hennig, 2016). The path from goals to achievements may be facilitated by learning from the experiences of the organics leaders of this and previous Organics Olympiads.
Key implications of the Organics Olympiad 2016 are that: (a) the organics sector exhibits great diversity in leadership; (b) there are multiple exemplars of organics leadership for states aspiring to advance their organics sector; (c) since the previous Organics Olympiad published in the Journal of Social and Development Sciences (JSDS) (Paull, 2011c), some leaders have entrenched their leadership, for example, Australia (Table 1), has increased its organic agriculture hectares by 43% while in the same period the global organic agriculture hectares have increased by 17%; (d) some leaders have reasserted their leadership, for example, the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) retain their leadership for organic share of agricultural land (Table 7) -with a modest increase from 35.7% to 36.3% since the previous JSDS account; (e) some leaders have newly appeared since the previous JSDS account, for example, Zambia has surged to position two for organic wild culture (Table 2), while Tunisia has streaked ahead to position one for organic forestry (Table 4) -neither ranked in the previous JSDS Olympiad; (f) there is some volatility in the organics sector, for example, China was previously the leader in organic aquaculture, but has disappeared in the present Olympiad (Table 3); (g) as statistics become available, the non-certified organics sector (i.e. naked organics) can broaden out the view of organics leadership -in the present Olympiad, WWOOF statistics are included (at Table 13); (h) with organic agriculture accounting for just 0.99% of global agriculture, the Olympiad underscores the