Cioceanu said internal consumption of organic foods amounted to EUR45-50 million in 2010, with imported products accounting for around EUR35 million. According to the association’s data, exports of organic food were worth EUR150 million last year.
Foreign demand for organic food is very high, said Cioceanu. The main export destinations in 2010 were Germany, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the USA and Japan.
Cioceanu added that Romanian producers sell their products abroad for 2-3 times the price of conventional foods. The major products resulting from ecological farming in Romania are honey, wine and pastries.
„Without exports, we could not be talking about ecological farming in Romania,” said Cioceanu.
The area of ecologically farmed land has grown in Romania around 15 times in the last ten years, to 260,000 hectares – making up almost 2% of the total farm production, according to the Agriculture Ministry’s data.