CANBERRA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Australia's organically grown beef has become increasingly popular in the United States and China, as pastoral land devoted to organic farming in the Northern Territory (NT) now matches the size of a small European country.
According to Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) estimates on Friday, the NT now has 8 million hectares set aside for organic farming, roughly the size of Austria.
A spokesperson for Australian Organic, a farmers' organization aimed at maintaining the nation's organic standards, said Australia has seen a boom in the organic beef sector over the last year.
"The organic beef market in Australia, in its entirety, is worth 564 million Australian dollars (420 million USD) and 20 percent of all organic products are beef," Rhiannon Christie told the ABC on Friday morning.
Around 90 percent of the organic beef produced in Australia gets exported to the U.S., but figures from Australian Organic showed demand in China is increasing and it is now up to second place.
The first cattle yard in Australia to be certified under the National Certified Organic and the U.S. National Organic Program programs was in Alice Springs, south of Darwin.
While fewer beef producers are found in the NT when compared to the rest of Australia, the area has always remained a leader in organic beef production.
Mark Anderson, the General Manager of the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture, said areas in central and northern Australia were ideal for organic farming because the conditions are almost always perfect.
"If you've been fertilising the land and using herbicide to reduce weeds, from the minute you stop doing that, it will take you three years to become fully organically certified," Anderson told the ABC on Friday.
"If you've never used those kinds of products on your land then it's only going to take you about 12 months to get certified."
The Australian organic agriculture industry has been conservatively estimated to stand at 1.85 billion USD, an 88 percent increase from 2012, with exports to Asia, most notably China and Japan, enjoying strong growth.
China, especially, has become a big global beef importer, reportedly taking last year beef consignments worth 1.98 billion USD from the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.
