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Certified agriculture expands to nearly 10% of global harvested area for key crops

Cover of the publication.

The tenth edition of "The State of Sustainable Markets".

Cotton and cocoa have largest share of the harvested area. (Graph: FiBL-ITC-IISD State of Sustainability Initiatives survey, 2025)

FiBL, the International Trade Centre (ITC), and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) have launched the 10th anniversary edition of "The State of Sustainable Markets 2025: Statistics and Emerging Trends". The report confirms a decade-long trend of steady growth, with certified production now covering almost 10 percent of the world's farmland for eight key crops.

For ten years, "The State of Sustainable Markets" has provided transparency in the complex world of voluntary sustainability standards (VSS). The 2025 edition, supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), presents data from 2023 and highlights a resilient sector that continues to expand following a temporary dip in 2020. Voluntary standards are usually third party-assessed norms and requirements linked to environmental, social, ethical and food safety issues.

The report analyses 13 major sustainability standards across eight agricultural commodities (cotton, cocoa, oil palm, soybeans, sugarcane, banana, coffee and tea) and forestry. In 2023, at least 9.7% of the global harvested area of these eight agricultural commodities was certified and, coincidentally, at least 9.7% of the global forestry area was also certified.

The "Big Five" drive expansion

The report analyses 13 major sustainability standards across nine commodities. In 2023, certified agriculture continued to grow, driven largely by the "Big Five" commodities: cotton, cocoa, oil palm, soybeans, and sugarcane.

Key findings include:

  • Cotton and cocoa: Cotton maintained the largest certified area at 6.7 million hectares (21 % of the global cotton area), followed by cocoa at 4.2 million hectares (36.2 %).
  • Soybeans: This crop showed the fastest growth in the 2023 period (+19.2 %), reaching 3.5 million hectares.
  • While agricultural standards expanded, certified forest area saw a decline of 6.1 % in 2023, largely due to geopolitical disruptions and the suspension of certificates in the Russian Federation and Belarus.
  • Organic dominance: Organic agriculture remains the largest sustainability standard worldwide, covering 98.9 million hectares – over 2 % of global agricultural land.

The full report is available for download below. Interactive data is also available via the ITC Standards Map dashboard.

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