The total acreage devoted to organic agricultural crops in Europe has grown by 46% between 2012 and 2019, totaling almost 13.8 million hectares, according to Eurostat data. That figure represents 8.5% of Europe's total agricultural acreage.
In 2019, the countries with the highest share of their agricultural acreage devoted to organic production were Austria (25.3%), Estonia (22.3%) and Sweden (20.4%). Behind are Switzerland (16.3%), Italy (15.2%), the Czech Republic (15.2%), Latvia (14.8%) and Finland (13.5%). Spain is above the European average, with almost 10%.
In 2019, Sweden had the highest share of organic grains (7%) and fresh vegetables (19%), while Greece had the highest share of organic cattle (27%) and Latvia the highest share of organic sheep and goats (36%).
The owners of organic farms are usually younger than those of conventional ones. The proportion of owners under the age of 40 was twice as high for organic farms (21%) than for non-organic farms (10.5%).
Source: agrodigital.com