Northeast stands out as new organic frontier in Brazil
The Brazilian Northeast is consolidating itself as the new growth engine for organic agriculture in the country. Working against an unprecedented drop in the total number of registered producers in 2026, states in the region registered significant expansion, leveraged by local production arrangements and the advancement of collective guarantee systems.
Data from the National Register of Organic Producers, analyzed by the Organic Brazil Observatory linked to IBO (Organic Brazil Institute), shows that the country ended the year with 23,728 production units, compared to the 25,178 registered in 2025.
The 5.7% drop (1,450 fewer producers) represents the first retraction since the beginning of the historical series. However, according to the president of IBO and agronomist, Rogério Dias, the indication does not reflect a weakening of the sector.
The reduction in the national index was driven by the departure of large certified extractive groups in Pará and Maranhão, which were linked to specific production chains. Together, the two states had more than 1,800 fewer registrations.
"The numbers show that we are not facing a crisis in organic agriculture. What happened was a movement concentrated in extractive chains organized in collective certifications. When a company stops maintaining the certification of a group, hundreds of producers are simultaneously removed from the register", explains Dias, who is also an advisor to the IBO.
Despite this, he warns against the reduction of investments and government public policies in the segment. "This year the resources allocated to promoting the activity are R$ 900 thousand", says Dias. The volume is significantly lower than the R$7.5 million recorded in 2016.
Northeastern advancement and diversification
While the North recorded concentrated casualties, the Northeast advanced in organic structuring. Paraíba led growth with 246 new formalized production units. Next came Bahia, with an increase of 209 producers, Rio Grande do Norte, with an additional 169 producers and Pernambuco, with an increase of 137 producers.
In Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte, the cultivation of organic cotton acted as the main driver of this expansion. In Bahia, the third state with the highest total number of producers in Brazil, with 1,895 producers, growth was driven by productive diversification and the strength of the Povos da Mata Network, which is a national reference in participatory certification.
Despite the change in the growth axis, the South region still concentrates the largest absolute volume of production units. Paraná remains at the top of the national ranking with 4,292 records, followed by Rio Grande do Sul, with 3,158, Bahia, with 1,895, São Paulo, with 1,632 and Pará, with 1,512.
Historic milestone in participatory certification
The 2026 balance sheet also revealed a key turn in the regulatory profile. For the first time in Brazil, the SPG (Participatory Guarantee Systems), a model based on responsibility and social control among farmers themselves, surpassed the traditional certification by audit, carried out by private companies.
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The SPGs reached 9,788 production units in the year, compared to 8,855 records under the traditional audit model. According to the Observatory's analysis, the phenomenon demonstrates the strengthening of collective and territorial models of producer organization, something notable in the advancement of the Northeast.
For the president of IBO, the current organic map in the country calls for the strengthening of regional articulations to monitor bottlenecks and ensure sustainable growth. "The moment demands a more in-depth reading of the data. There are clear signs of territorial reorganization of Brazilian organic production, with new regions gaining prominence and new certification models showing expansion capacity", concludes Rogério Dias.
Source: CNN