Consumer demand for organic food is soaring in Europe, leading to a jump in the number of organic farms from 6,300 in 1985 to more than 100,000 in 1998, according to a report prepared last year for the European Union by Nicholas Lampkin of the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. Lampkin predicted that 10 percent of all agricultural land in Europe will be organic by 2005; Austria has already passed the 10 percent threshold and Switzerland and Sweden are not far behind. Even with such dramatic growth, organic farmers aren’t keeping up with demand, which is driven by consumers who want to avoid genetically modified crops as well as by those who are nervous about food problems like the mad-cow outbreak in Britain and dioxin contamination in Belgium. Tesco, a major British grocery chain, says its organic sales topped $162 million in 1999, compared to just $8 million three years ago.
