Denmark's Organic Action Plan: Goals, Results and the 100% Myth

Denmark’s 2015 Organic Plan: Doubling Organic Farmland by 2020

Image: LifeGate.com

Denmark never set out to become a "100% organic nation". In early 2015 the Danish government launched a 67-point Organic Action Plan with two headline goals: double the country's organic farmland by 2020, compared with 2007, and reach 60% organic food in public kitchens such as schools, hospitals and nursing homes. It backed the plan with about 400 million kroner, roughly 53 to 54 million euros. The plan was ambitious, internationally praised and partly successful. Here is what it contained, how far Denmark got, and why the "100% organic" headline spread anyway.

What the 2015 Organic Action Plan said

The plan, called Økologiplan Danmark and published in English as "Working together for more organics", was presented in February 2015 by the then Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dan Jørgensen. He described its goals as the most ambitious in the Western world and argued that the public sector should lead the way.

Its 67 initiatives were grouped under six objectives. They worked on both supply and demand:

More organic farmland. Conversion and maintenance payments under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, advice for farmers considering conversion, and research funding to make organic methods more productive.
Public land. State-owned farmland was to be farmed organically where possible.
Public kitchens. Funding and training to help municipalities and regions convert canteens, with the national target of 60% organic food.
Markets and exports. Support for new organic products and for selling Danish organic food abroad.

Over 2015 to 2018, the plan and related programmes directed around 190 million euros into organic farming, including about 143 million euros in conversion and maintenance support and some 10 million euros each for market development and research.

Where the "100% organic" claim came from

The 100% figure most likely comes from Bhutan. In 2013 the Himalayan kingdom announced that it aimed to become the world's first country with fully organic farming, with support from IFOAM, the international organics federation. When Denmark announced its plan two years later, viral articles merged the two stories, and Denmark was described as "competing" with Bhutan for the title.

Other details in those viral versions were also off. The plan had 67 points, not 57. The claim that organic exports had "boosted the Danish economy by 200%" since 2007 confuses growth in organic exports with growth of the whole economy, which is impossible at that scale. And while the plan encouraged state land to be farmed organically and helped farmers convert, it did not require all farms to go organic.

Why Denmark was a natural leader

Denmark had a head start. Its red Ø-label, the state-controlled organic mark, dates from around 1990, celebrated its 25th anniversary in the mid-2010s and is widely recognised in Danish shops. It is a state-controlled label, which helps public trust.

By the mid-2010s organic food already held around a tenth of the Danish retail market, the highest share of any country, and nearly 80% of Danes said they bought organic food at least sometimes. Organic Denmark, the industry association, says Danes still buy more organic products per person than people anywhere else.

Public kitchens: the 60% goal

The most visible part of the plan was in public food. Copenhagen had already shown it was possible: by 2015 its public kitchens were serving about 90% organic food, and the city managed this without raising meal prices. The trick was not simply to buy organic versions of the same food, but to change menus: more seasonal vegetables, less meat, less food waste and more cooking from scratch, so that the savings paid for the higher-priced ingredients.

The national 60% target proved harder. Organic Denmark reports that organic products made up about 14% of the foodservice market as a whole in 2023. That figure covers all catering, not only public kitchens, but it shows how much of the sector still has a long way to go.

Results: did Denmark double its organic farmland?

Not by 2020, but it made real progress. According to the World Future Council's review, organic land in 2017 covered about 245,000 hectares, more than 9% of farmland and 68% above the 2007 baseline, spread over roughly 3,500 farms. In 2018 the plan won the Future Policy Silver Award, given by the World Future Council together with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and IFOAM.

Growth then slowed. Organic Denmark reports that organic land made up 11.3% of Danish farmland in 2024, citing the Danish Agricultural Agency. The industry's current goal is for 25% of the food Danes buy to be organic by 2030.

What other countries can learn

Denmark's experience offers a few practical lessons:

Work on demand and supply together. Farmers convert when they trust there will be buyers; public kitchens create steady demand.
Change the menu, not just the label. Copenhagen's success came from cooking differently, not from paying more.
A trusted label matters. A single state-run mark made organic food easy to recognise and believe.
Set realistic targets. Doubling farmland in five years proved too fast, but the push still moved Denmark far ahead of most countries.

Organic farming is not automatically better on every measure. Yields are often lower, which means more land per tonne of food, and researchers still debate its overall climate effect. But on pesticide use, soil life and animal welfare standards, Denmark's choice to back it with public money has been one of the most closely watched experiments in Europe.

Sources: FoodNavigator (2 February 2015): Denmark launches 'most ambitious' organic plan; World Future Council, Future Policy: Denmark's Organic Action Plan; Organic Denmark: Consumption and land use; Wikipedia: Agriculture in Bhutan; the viral version of this story was published by True Activist (September 2016), citing OrganicVeganEarth. Image: LifeGate.com.

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