Organic supply and demand in China

China's demand for organic produce is growing, says this article on the effect of recent food safety scares on Chinese consumers.

From Reuters:

A clutch of dedicated shops have sprung up in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities, and major supermarket chains are also starting to offer organic fruits, vegetables, meat and washing up liquid too.
"Domestic consumption of organic food is growing, partly attributed to worries over food safety, but exports are the major reason for growth," said Luo Min, an official with the China Organic Food Development Center, which helps with certification.
Those exports were worth some $300 million last year, according to the center's figures.
Such figures are music to the ears of Zhang Lingyu, who was jailed for 102 days for promoting pesticide-free food in the 1970s, at a time when the government prioritized chemical use to squeeze ever higher yields out of China's limited farmland.
"At that time they thought I was mad. How could you produce farm products without chemical fertilizer and pesticides?" said Zhang, whose company San'an Agriculture promotes "safe food."
"But now I'm welcomed everywhere. Local governments have found their products are hard to sell because of the residues," he told Reuters.
"China depends on its cheap prices to push its products on the world market, but it ignored safety. Residues from pesticides and fertilizers are too high," Zhang said.


TK: It sounds like China needs a national certification system, as distrust of various certifications is a problem in building consumer demand.