The GOMA project has been visible in both the East and the West this month. On 4-5 February, GOMA held an invited workshop in Nonthaburi, Thailand (a suburb of Bangkok). The workshop was piggybacked to an Organic Symposium sponsored by the Thai Ministry of Commerce, which drew more than 400 Thai participants and generated substantial local media coverage. Following up on that event, we drew together government and private sector representatives from Thailand, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar to discuss opportunities in the Greater Mekong Region for harmonization and equivalence. The aim of this workshop was to bring key regional actors together and to get input on a plan for developing a common regional organic market with a clear path for regional trade. A highlight of the workshop was a side meeting between Thailand and China to get acquainted and begin to build the familiarity and confidence necessary to developing an equivalence agreement. A full report of this workshop is available on our website under Regional Projects – Asia.
GOMA project representatives were then off to BioFach in Nuremberg Germany (18-20 February), where we held a full schedule of meetings and presentations to introduce the project and touch base with key actors. Our main presentation drew more than 40 people who engaged us with thoughtful questions. In this presentation, we explained the change occurring in world organic markets. The rise of significant markets for organic products in countries like China, Brazil, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan/Chinese Tapei are changing the face of a pie chart that has up to now shown that about 97% percent of worldwide organic sales are in Europe and North America. In the coming years, these new markets will rival Europe and North America in market share, and increase the need for streamlining trade requirements.
In separate meetings we also briefed the USDA National Organic Program, the Organic Farming Unit of the EU Commission, representatives from the Accreditation program of India (APEDA), and the Organic Trade Association in North America. The event was also a good opportunity for us to discuss with Chinese government representatives and BioFach-China, the upcoming GOMA Workshop being planned for Shanghai in late May, in conjunction with BioFach-China.