Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Lithuanian Organic Agriculture in the Context of European Union
http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/58352
3. Development of organic agriculture
To make spread and development of alternative agriculture in the world easier the Interna‐
tional Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement IFOAM was established in 1972. This
federation unites majority of alternative agriculture movements in different states. At present
IFOAM includes over 700 organizations of alternative-ecological agriculture from more than
100 countries. Several directions of IFOAM activity cover consulting, data exchange and
standardization [5].
The area of certified organic agricultural land in the world continuously is tending to increase
(Figure 1). During ten years period from 1999 to 2009 organic agricultural area increased by
3.4 times and reached 37.2 million hectares.
Sharp development of organic agriculture lightly moved to more balanced development while
increase in organic area from 2008 to 2009 already consisted 5.7%. Such dynamics is in
conformity with the organic area development in Europe (Figure 2) and separate countries
(Figure 6), as well as in Lithuania (Figure 7).
Figure 1.
Development of organic agricultural land 1999-2009 in the world [16]; Source: FiBL, IFOAM and SOEL
2000-2011; www.fibl.org
Area of certified organic agricultural land in Europe increased by million hectares or 12 percent
from 2008 to 2009 (Figure 2) while in early years (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) increase consisted of
6.4-7.3%. The organic area 2009 in Europe covered 9.3 million hectares while European Union
countries covered 8.4 million hectares from them. The geographical distribution of area and
share of organic agriculture in Europe by country in 2009 is presented in figure 3. The biggest
organic areas were established in Spain, Italy and Germany.
Geographical distribution of fully converted organic crop area in 2012 in EU is presented
in figure 4 and share of organic agriculture in percent (Figure 5). It showed that the highest
certified organic agricultural areas are in Italy, Spain, Poland, France and the United
Kingdom. However, share of total utilized agricultural area occupied by organic farming
in Italy, Spain, Poland, France and the United Kingdom were 8.9%, 7.5%, 4.6%, 3.6% and
