Organic Olive Cultivation in Italy Continues to Expand

The land ded­i­cated to organic olive groves in Italy con­tin­ued its expan­sion in 2023, increas­ing by 2.2 per­cent, or 6,142 hectares.

According to a new report pub­lished by the Italian Institute of Services for the Agricultural and Food Market (Ismea), 279,766 hectares of olive groves are now organ­i­cally cul­ti­vated in the coun­try, and an addi­tional 64,000 hectares are being con­verted to organic.

Ismea esti­mated that organic olive grove cover has increased 65 per­cent from 170,067 hectares in the past decade.

The organic con­ver­sion process fol­lows the European Union reg­u­la­tions, which require at least three years, dur­ing which a cer­ti­fied organic agri­cul­ture approach is applied before a con­ven­tional olive grove for­mally receives organic sta­tus.

While most organic olive grow­ing has his­tor­i­cally occurred in south­ern Italy, a sig­nif­i­cant increase was reported in 2023 in the cen­ter and north of the coun­try.

However, the area ded­i­cated to organic olive farm­ing decreased by 2,000 hectares in Puglia, the largest olive-pro­duc­ing region in Italy, falling to approx­i­mately 86,000 hectares.

Despite this reduc­tion, Puglia remains home to one-third of all organic olive groves in the coun­try, partly due to the sub­stan­tial expan­sion of organic olive farm­ing in recent years.

The expan­sion of organic olive groves in 2023 was slightly below the national aver­age for all Italian agri­cul­ture, with the total used agri­cul­tural sur­face ded­i­cated to organic farm­ing grow­ing by 4.5 per­cent.

Ismea noted that 2023 marked the first year of the E.U.’s new Common Agricultural Policy, which sup­ports farm­ers and improves agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tiv­ity through sub­si­dies and other pro­grams.

The CAP, which will remain in force until 2027, is a crit­i­cal dri­ver in the shift to organic farm­ing. It offers bonuses and spe­cial incen­tives to farm­ers who adopt more envi­ron­men­tally friendly prac­tices.

According to Ismea, the new CAP’s admin­is­tra­tive com­plex­i­ties and ris­ing pro­duc­tion costs in 2023 pre­sented chal­lenges for the Italian agri­cul­tural sec­tor.

Despite these chal­lenges, fur­ther exac­er­bated by fre­quent adverse weather events, Italy’s organic farm­ing sur­face area expanded to 2.5 mil­lion hectares.

Ismea noted that this expan­sion brought the national used agri­cul­tural sur­face area close to 20 per­cent, approach­ing the E.U.’s Farm-to-Fork pol­icy goal of 25 per­cent.

Commenting on the report, FederBIO, an asso­ci­a­tion of organic pro­duc­ers, indi­cated that the num­ber of food com­pa­nies oper­at­ing under organic pro­to­cols in Italy in 2023 increased by 1.8 per­cent, most of which were organic farms.

The asso­ci­a­tion also high­lighted a 5.2 per­cent growth in organic food sales in 2023, reach­ing a total turnover of €3.8 bil­lion. However, this growth is attrib­uted more to higher prices than increased sales vol­umes.

“ISMEA data show a con­tin­u­ous growth for organic pro­duc­tion, even if it slightly slowed down as a con­se­quence of the envi­ron­men­tal, cli­matic and social crises,” FederBIO pres­i­dent Maria Grazia Mammuccini said.

“The cli­mate cri­sis impacts all of agri­cul­ture, lead­ing to a reduc­tion in pro­duc­tion,” she added. ​“Even if organic farm­ing is the most resilient agri­cul­tural model to cli­mate emer­gen­cies, I con­sider it nec­es­sary to focus on train­ing and tech­ni­cal assis­tance to sup­port farm­ers and invest in agroe­col­ogy inno­va­tion and research.”

“This will pro­vide increas­ingly effec­tive tools to counter cli­mate change, restore degraded habi­tats, and simul­ta­ne­ously increase bio­di­ver­sity and soil fer­til­ity,” Mammuccini con­cluded.