Published: 06/13/2007 - Updated: 07/17/2016
Agricultural area for organic production means in the EU25, 3.9% of the total, according to 2005 data. Some countries are well above that percentage, as Austria (11%), Italy (8.4%), Greece (7.2%), Czech Republic (7.2%) and Latvia (7%). Others, by contrast, much lower, such as Malta (0.1%), Poland (0.6%), Ireland (0.8%), Belgium (1.7%), France (2%) and Hungary (2%). In the case of Spain, the percentage devoted to organic production is 3.2%.
In recent years, the percentage of area devoted to organic production has increased. Between 1998 and 2005, the proportion of organic area increased from 1.8% to 4.1% in EU-15.
For number of hectares, the total spent in the EU organic production is 6.1 million. In all countries, Italy is the most dedicated area, with 1.1 million (17% of total EU-25), followed by Germany and Spain (both with 807,000 ha or 13 %).
In the EU-25, 1.6% of the farms are organic. These are on average much larger than conventional ones. While the average size in the EU-25 organic farms is 38.7 ha, the average total holding is 16 ha. Organic farms are larger in Slovakia (463 ha / exp.), The Czech Republic (305 ha), Portugal (148 ha) and the United Kingdom (142 ha). In the case of Spain, the organic farm had an average of 51.5 compared to 23 that has the average size of farms in Spain.
The proportion of area under conversion of total organic surface varies between Member States, less than 10% in Denmark (1%), Netherlands (4%), Finland (8%) and Sweden (9%) to over 80% in Malta (100%), Cyprus (87%) and Latvia (83%). In the case of Spain is 42%.
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Stacy
I would believe that for sure, that Spain is one of the global leaders in organic agricultre. It seems like they’ve done a lot of work in networking and education, disseminating information about the benefits of organic agriculture, and the government actually invests money is this farming!