Europe Plans to Triple Agricultural Land Dedicated to Organic Farming by 2030

The European Commission has announced a plan to grow the share of agri­cul­tural land under organic farm­ing in the European Union to 25 per­cent by 2030 as part of the bloc’s Farm to Fork Strategy.

Currently, about 8.5 per­cent – 13.8 mil­lion hectares – of all agri­cul­tural land in the E.U. is farmed organ­i­cally. According to data from Eurostat, 9.8 per­cent of the bloc’s 4.6 mil­lion hectares of olive groves are organ­i­cally cul­ti­vated.

The European Commission esti­mates that organic agri­cul­tural prod­ucts in the 27-mem­ber bloc are cur­rently val­ued at about €41 bil­lion.

“By pro­duc­ing high-qual­ity food with low envi­ron­men­tal impact, organic farm­ing will play an essen­tial role in devel­op­ing a sus­tain­able food sys­tem for the E.U.,” the European Commission said.

Before the Commission made its announce­ment, the share of agri­cul­tural land under organic farm­ing prac­tices was already on pace to reach between 15 and 18 per­cent by 2030.

“The 25 per­cent tar­get sig­nif­i­cantly increases our ambi­tion,” the Commission said in its report. ​“This action plan aims to encour­age a marked increase of the share of organic farm­ing in the E.U., through encour­ag­ing farm­ers to con­vert to organic farm­ing and to expand the acces­si­bil­ity of organic food to close the gap between a busi­ness-as-usual growth curve and the ​‘extra effort’ nec­es­sary to reach a 25 per­cent tar­get by 2030.”

The Commission plans to reach its new tar­get by stim­u­lat­ing organic food con­sump­tion in the bloc. It has pro­posed to do this by pro­mot­ing the organic farm­ing logo applied to food prod­ucts in the E.U., improv­ing trace­abil­ity and crack­ing down on food fraud to increase con­sumer trust.

The Commission also plans to increase the rate at which farm­ers are con­vert­ing to organic prac­tices by pro­vid­ing finan­cial sup­port and incen­tives to do so through the Common Agricultural Policy, pro­mot­ing organic pro­ducer asso­ci­a­tions and strength­en­ing local and small-vol­ume pro­duc­tion chains.

The ulti­mate goal of the plan is to add value to European agri­cul­ture and increase the sus­tain­abil­ity of the sec­tor, which is one of the largest emit­ters of green­house gases on the con­ti­nent.

“The E.U. has a lead­ing role to play in the pro­mo­tion of changes in farm­ing prac­tices,” the report con­cluded. ​“Increased organic pro­duc­tion is cen­tral to the tran­si­tion to more sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture and aqua­cul­ture sec­tors that pro­vide fair incomes for farm­ers and con­tribute to vibrant European rural and coastal areas.”

• European Commission
• European Commission