Sustainable Agriculture and Biodiversity

The demand for organic, natural and biodiversity-based products is increasing in developed countries. These markets offer export opportunities for developing countries and can play an important role in reducing poverty in rural areas and contributing to environmental protection.

Exporters in developing countries, however, face obstacles that include being able to meet buyers’ demands on quality, lack of information about requirements and standards, certification processes and connecting with buyers.

ITC delivers technical assistance to SMEs and TSIs to enable them to respond to these requirements and access markets. The benefits of developing organic and natural products trade go beyond economic development. Organic farm production itself has important environmental benefits and helps farmers mitigate and adapt to climate change. Collection of natural products from forests offers an economic alternative to destructive practices like slash and burn agriculture. By identifying market opportunities for biodiversity based products, exporters will face an increased incentive to manage harvesting sustainably.

The objective of ITC’s work on sustainable agriculture and biodiversity is to increase the competitiveness of SMEs exporting products in the organic and biodiversity-based markets.

This is achieved through three modes of support:

• Capacity building for companies and trade support institutions on meeting market requirements,
• Strengthening market linkages through trade fair preparation and participation, and
• Publishing market studies and guides on sustainable agriculture and biodiversity-related markets.

Under this work programme, ITC is running three projects. One in Zambia on organic and biodiversity products, one in Peru on biodiversity products, and a third in South East Asia on wildlife trade. More information on these and past projects can be found here.

All ITC publications on sustainable agriculture and biodiversity can be accessed here.  

TEP also manages Organic Link, a web portal serving the organic business communities. This website helps exporters and importers of organic products to find each other through its easy-to-access database of business contacts. It also contains useful information about organic products and markets.