Organic Farming in European Union Countries – Opportunities and Perspectives

Anna Sylwia Kowalska

Abstract:

The article is devoted to the presentation of the state of organic farming in the enlarged European Union (EU). The study uses statistical materials published by FIBL and IFOAM, GIJHARS and the Statistical Yearbook of Agriculture as well as in the Eurostat and FIBL database. The subject of the analysis was data on organic farming in the European Union. The analysis was made both in terms of the division into the old and the new EU, as well as individual EU countries. The basic time range of the data is 2000-2017. The area of ​​organic farming, the share of organic farming area in the total utilized agricultural area and the number of farms and organic food processors were analysed. The article uses basic methods of statistical analysis of data, i.e. Pearson's correlation, trend lines, dynamics indicators, structure analysis, arithmetic mean, standard deviation and cluster analysis. Over the period under review, there were changes in the European Union in both the area and the number of producers and processors of organic food. In 2017, Austria and Estonia have the largest share (over 20%) of the fully transformed ecological zone in the UAA in EU Member States. This share in these countries is as much as 3 standard deviations of the average in the European Union. In 2000-2017 the number of organic farms in 28 EU Member States doubled, their area increased almost three times, while the number of processors of this food increased more than 55 times. At the same time, attention was drawn to the large variation in the size of ecological agricultural land and the number of organic farms in individual Member States of the European Union. In 2000-2017, the largest area of ​​organic farming among EU member states was recorded in Spain, Italy, Germany and France. The article also indicates the dynamic development of this way of farming in the countries of the new European Union. The directions of changes in organic farming in new Community countries were presented, for which the benefits of EU membership were an important impulse.