A drop in demand for organic food in France is raising difficult questions for the country's organic farmers. A new law passed in March maintained organic farming targets, but critics say it does nothing to boost the sector at a time when climate concerns are crucial, and pits productivity against the environment.
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Only 6 percent of food consumed in France is organic, and as demand drops, farmers are worried about their long-term economic prospects.
By: Sarah Elzas
Video by:Sarah Elzas
Issued on: 21/03/2025 -
After double-digit growth in the last few years, including throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, organic food is in free fall in France.
"During Covid we reached 12 to 15 percent of our sales in organic, but then after Covid, people were more cautious about their food spending, so it has dropped," Pierre Gratacos, operations director for Cardell, an apple producer in south-western France, explained at the recent Paris international agricultural show, where he was showcasing the company’s organic Juliet apples.
During the pandemic people cooked at home more and spent more money on food, but as leisure activities resumed and rising inflation started to impact prices, the cost of buying organic has become a sticking point.
More about how organic farmers are dealing with the drop in consumer demand in the Spotlight on France podcast:
After double-digit growth in the last few years, including throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, organic food is in free fall in France.
"During Covid we reached 12 to 15 percent of our sales in organic, but then after Covid, people were more cautious about their food spending, so it has dropped," Pierre Gratacos, operations director for Cardell, an apple producer in south-western France, explained at the recent Paris international agricultural show, where he was showcasing the company’s organic Juliet apples.
During the pandemic people cooked at home more and spent more money on food, but as leisure activities resumed and rising inflation started to impact prices, the cost of buying organic has become a sticking point.
More about how organic farmers are dealing with the drop in consumer demand in the Spotlight on France podcast:
Spotlight on France, episode 125 © RFI
"People have less money to spend on food, so they usually buy less," said Gratacos, explaining that organic apples are more expensive to grow because the trees yield less fruit.
"Because the method of growing is a bit more demanding, so there are fewer apples in one organic tree than in a normal tree, and if you grow fewer apples, you need to sell them at a higher price," he explained.
With increased costs for packing added, the company's organic apples are 25 to 30 percent more expensive than conventionally grown ones.
Convincing the middlemen
However, Gratacos believes consumers would be willing to pay more, with the right information.
"They are OK about buying more expensive apples if they're organic," he said. "I think the end consumers are ready, but the middle buyers are not ready and are not really educated about it."
The middle buyers are the middlemen who buy produce wholesale and resell it to grocery chains, where the bulk of food is purchased.
Today, just 6 percent of food consumed in France is organic, according to the Agence Bio, the agency supported by the agriculture ministry which promotes organic production.
This drop in demand means farmers have less of a market to sell to, which has led them to question their business models.
In 2023, France had around 61,000 organic farms – 14.4 percent of the total number – which were working on 10.4 percent of the country's agricultural land.
That was a drop of 1.3 percent from the previous year and, according to the chamber of agriculture, the number of farmers converting to organic dropped by 30 percent.
Organic aspirations
Those in the organic sector say this drop impacts everyone, as half of all France’s farmers are set to retire in the next 10 years, and newcomers to the sector are particularly interested in organic
"We have a lot of aspiring farmers, and they want to become organic farmers," said Philippe Camburet, president of the National Organic Agriculture Federation. "If we do not allow them to go into organic farming, they will not go into this profession."
Setting up any agricultural enterprise requires significant investment. Conventional farms need to sign contracts with pesticide and fertiliser suppliers and are under pressure to produce.
"They don’t want this," Camburet says of new farmers. "This is not the agriculture that makes you dream. What makes you dream is what has meaning."
French PM Bayrou says more must be done to support farmers
But ideals only go so far, and without the consumer demand, people are hesitant to go into organic farming.
"Some people who want to get installed in organic agriculture think a little bit more, and they sometimes hesitate to go into this field," says Vincent Kraus, co-founder of Fermes en Vie ("Farms alive"), an organisation which raises investor funds to provide new farmers with land to start out as organic farmers.
"They really want to do things differently, and are interested in other ways to produce," he says of the farmers he works with.
Agriculture and environment
He and others had hoped that the long-delayed agricultural reform law that was passed in March to address the grievances raised by farmers in protests in the winter of 2024, would provide more support to organic farmers.
Environmentalists and politicians on the left have criticised the law for backtracking on environmental commitments, with articles loosening rules on pesticides and land usage.
"I was expecting the pragmatic guidelines that make sense for future generations," Camburet said. "Unfortunately, that is really not at all the case."
The text of the law states that agriculture is a "major national interest", essential to the French economy. It goes on to define food sovereignty as not only the capacity to produce enough food to feed the French population, but also to support France’s exports to "contribute to global food security".
"The agricultural industry wants to be on the world market, to compete with others, who are much bigger than we are," Camburet said. "What we must do is take a different path. Why should we continue to go big, exhausting ourselves, and exhausting our economy, our environment and our health?"
Linking farm and plate
This law maintains France’s ambition to reach 21 percent organic agriculture by 2030 – a target that had been removed in the right-leaning Senate version of the text, but which was later reinstated.
The Senate argued that there was no point in setting targets if consumer demand was not there.
EU ramps up support for farmers with agricultural policy overhaul
Laure Verdot, director of the Agence Bio – which the senators had also wanted to cut – agrees with this to some extent, but says that the goal should instead be to change consumer demands.
"It’s not enough to declare an objective of the number of hectares of organic in the fields," she said "We must have ambitions for organic consumers."
The agency has launched a campaign to promote organic food to the general public.
"We must absolutely make the link between our consumption, on our plates, and the farmers in the field," Verdot said. "If we want to be able to draw in farmers who want to go organic, we must make room for them on our plates."
To hear more on the state of organic farming in France, on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 125, listen here.
"People have less money to spend on food, so they usually buy less," said Gratacos, explaining that organic apples are more expensive to grow because the trees yield less fruit.
"Because the method of growing is a bit more demanding, so there are fewer apples in one organic tree than in a normal tree, and if you grow fewer apples, you need to sell them at a higher price," he explained.
With increased costs for packing added, the company's organic apples are 25 to 30 percent more expensive than conventionally grown ones.
Convincing the middlemen
However, Gratacos believes consumers would be willing to pay more, with the right information.
"They are OK about buying more expensive apples if they're organic," he said. "I think the end consumers are ready, but the middle buyers are not ready and are not really educated about it."
The middle buyers are the middlemen who buy produce wholesale and resell it to grocery chains, where the bulk of food is purchased.
Today, just 6 percent of food consumed in France is organic, according to the Agence Bio, the agency supported by the agriculture ministry which promotes organic production.
This drop in demand means farmers have less of a market to sell to, which has led them to question their business models.
In 2023, France had around 61,000 organic farms – 14.4 percent of the total number – which were working on 10.4 percent of the country's agricultural land.
That was a drop of 1.3 percent from the previous year and, according to the chamber of agriculture, the number of farmers converting to organic dropped by 30 percent.
Organic aspirations
Those in the organic sector say this drop impacts everyone, as half of all France’s farmers are set to retire in the next 10 years, and newcomers to the sector are particularly interested in organic
"We have a lot of aspiring farmers, and they want to become organic farmers," said Philippe Camburet, president of the National Organic Agriculture Federation. "If we do not allow them to go into organic farming, they will not go into this profession."
Setting up any agricultural enterprise requires significant investment. Conventional farms need to sign contracts with pesticide and fertiliser suppliers and are under pressure to produce.
"They don’t want this," Camburet says of new farmers. "This is not the agriculture that makes you dream. What makes you dream is what has meaning."
French PM Bayrou says more must be done to support farmers
But ideals only go so far, and without the consumer demand, people are hesitant to go into organic farming.
"Some people who want to get installed in organic agriculture think a little bit more, and they sometimes hesitate to go into this field," says Vincent Kraus, co-founder of Fermes en Vie ("Farms alive"), an organisation which raises investor funds to provide new farmers with land to start out as organic farmers.
"They really want to do things differently, and are interested in other ways to produce," he says of the farmers he works with.
Agriculture and environment
He and others had hoped that the long-delayed agricultural reform law that was passed in March to address the grievances raised by farmers in protests in the winter of 2024, would provide more support to organic farmers.
Environmentalists and politicians on the left have criticised the law for backtracking on environmental commitments, with articles loosening rules on pesticides and land usage.
"I was expecting the pragmatic guidelines that make sense for future generations," Camburet said. "Unfortunately, that is really not at all the case."
The text of the law states that agriculture is a "major national interest", essential to the French economy. It goes on to define food sovereignty as not only the capacity to produce enough food to feed the French population, but also to support France’s exports to "contribute to global food security".
"The agricultural industry wants to be on the world market, to compete with others, who are much bigger than we are," Camburet said. "What we must do is take a different path. Why should we continue to go big, exhausting ourselves, and exhausting our economy, our environment and our health?"
Linking farm and plate
This law maintains France’s ambition to reach 21 percent organic agriculture by 2030 – a target that had been removed in the right-leaning Senate version of the text, but which was later reinstated.
The Senate argued that there was no point in setting targets if consumer demand was not there.
EU ramps up support for farmers with agricultural policy overhaul
Laure Verdot, director of the Agence Bio – which the senators had also wanted to cut – agrees with this to some extent, but says that the goal should instead be to change consumer demands.
"It’s not enough to declare an objective of the number of hectares of organic in the fields," she said "We must have ambitions for organic consumers."
The agency has launched a campaign to promote organic food to the general public.
"We must absolutely make the link between our consumption, on our plates, and the farmers in the field," Verdot said. "If we want to be able to draw in farmers who want to go organic, we must make room for them on our plates."
To hear more on the state of organic farming in France, on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 125, listen here.
