Organic agriculture in the European Union

Organic has become a way of living. Some people see these products as being tastier or healthier than those coming from conventional agriculture while others appreciate them because of the good practices towards the environment or the labour force employed on organic farms. We have also seen new organic shops open or old ones remaining in business even through the economic crisis, which would hint at an increasing demand for these products. Moving away from just assuming what the situation is, what do figures say? What is the organic production in the European Union (EU) and who are the people producing it?

The organic sector in the EU has been rapidly developing during the past years. According to Eurostat data, the EU-28 had in 2015 a total area of 11.1 million hectares cultivated as organic, up from 5.0 million in 2002. During the last decade, organic area in the EU increased by about 500 000 hectares per year. This is a big increase, but the whole organic area represents only 6.2% of total utilised agricultural area in Europe. The organic area is cultivated by almost 185 000 farms across Europe. Most of the organic land (78%) and of organic farms (81%) are situated in the EU Member States having joined the EU before 2004 (the so called EU-15), in which national and European legislation, among others, helped stimulate the development of this sector. The European countries having joined the EU since 2004 (called in the report the EU-N13) are not lagging behind and are quickly expanding the organic sector as well. They registered a 12% yearly growth rate in their organic area for from 2002 to 2015 and saw their number of holdings increase almost tenfold between 2003 and 2015.

But are organic holdings showing particular trends in comparison with conventional ones or are their managers different? Organic holdings tend to be bigger than conventional farms in the European Union. Organic farm managers tend to be generally younger than the average conventional farmers in Europe.

Around 306 500 organic operators (producers, processors and importers) were registered in the EU-28 in 2015. A good part of these operators (271 550) were represented by agricultural producers, who may also process and/or import organic products, and which were mostly active in the EU-15. Though about 11 600 producers were counted in the EU-N13 in 2002 their number grew to more than 65 650 in 2015, also as a result of additional financing provided by the European Union for this type of production following their accession.

Organic farms are active both in the arable crop and orchard as well as animal sectors. Figures show that at EU level both types of production are registering a positive trend for the studied years. But what sort of crop or animal products come out of organic production?

Data shows that permanent pasture represents the biggest share of the organic area (58%), followed by cereals (20%) and permanent crops (15%). Sheep (42%) and cattle (34%) are the most important types of organic animal production at European level, after poultry. However, other types of animal production should be mentioned in the EU, such as pigs, which registered 9%, and goats, which were at 7% of organic livestock in European Union in 2015.

The report gives an overview of the situation of organic agriculture in Europe, for given years, according to data availability. Since detailed data is not available for all countries and varies within the Eurostat databases, other sources and own estimations were also used in this report.

Download the report here.