Extremadura: 10% of the Organic Agriculture
The 9.62% of the agricultural area of Extremadura is dedicated to organic agriculture, which places it as one of the regions with the highest proportion of land under cultivation, only behind the Cantabria and Asturias.
As reflected in statistics from the Ministry of Environment, compiled using data from 2003, and consulted by Reuters, Cantabria region is the largest area planted with these crops, with 73.76%. Meanwhile, communities with lower weight of organic agriculture are Castilla y León (0.37%), País Vasco (0.87%), Castilla La Mancha (1.24%), Galicia (1.7%), Madrid (2.53%), Comunidad Valenciana (3.46%), Aragón (4.12%) and Murcia (4.29%).
Above 5% are La Rioja (5.31%), Baleares (6.08%), Catalonia (6.41%), Navarra (7.6%), Andalucía (7.74%), Canary Islands (9.42%), Extremadura and Asturias (10.27%).
Spain in 2003 had more than 725,000 hectares dedicated to organic agriculture, so that has increased 42 times the area in 1994, when there were only 17,210 hectares.
Since then, every year there have been increases in the number of hectares under organic agriculture which, for example, in 1996 exceeded 103,000 and in 2000 was approaching the 381,000 hectares.
Source: Journal of Extremadura