Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
10
9.3
9
8.3
7.8
8
7.3
6.8
7
6.4
6.1
5.8
6
5.4
4.5
5
3.7
4
2.9
3
2.3
1.8
2
1.4
1.0
0.8
0.6
1
0.3
0.5
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.1
0
Year
Figure 2.
Development of the organic agricultural land in Europe 1985-2009 [16]; Source: FiBL, Aberystwyth Universi‐
ty, AMI/ZMP
3.4% accordingly (Figure 6). The highest share from total agricultural land area in 2012
were in Austria 18.6%, Sweden 15.8%, Estonia 14.9% and Czech Republic 13.1%. The least
managed organic areas were fixed in Malta and Bulgaria (till 1%). EU-28 average covered
5.7% in 2012 (Figure 6).
Lithuanian organic agriculture area development was extremely rapid from the start of organic
agriculture as a farming form in 1990 [17]. From 2004 till 2012 area of organic agriculture in
Lithuania increased 3.8 times till 162655 hectares in 2012 (Figure 7). Contrary to continuously
increase of organic area the organic farm number has tendency to decrease from reached
maximum 2855 farms in 2007 while 2511 farms left in 2012. Therefore, the average size of
certified organic farm in Lithuania constantly increased and in 2012 already covered 64 ha
(Figure 8). The distribution of certified organic farms in Lithuania according to the farm size
in hectares is presented in figure 9. The most organic farms (47%) operated area is till 30 ha.
Organic farms with 31-50 ha, 51-100 ha and 101-300 ha covered 16.5%, 17.0% and 16.5%
respectively. The biggest organic farms with the area above 300 hectares make 2.5% of the
general number of organic farms in Lithuania (Figure 9).
The average size of organic agricultural holdings in 2007 was 37 ha for the EU-27 as a whole,
compared to 13 ha for all agricultural holdings [19]. The average size of each agricultural
holding (farm) in the EU-28 was 14.2 hectares in 2010 [20]. In general, the average size of
holdings in the organic sector was larger in most of the Member States and smaller only in
Denmark, France and Luxembourg. The most noticeable differences were seen in the Czech
Republic (223 ha compared to 89 ha) and Slovakia (421 ha compared to 28 ha), (Figure 10). One
possible reason for these sometimes big differences is the use of a more extensive method of
farming within the organic sector [19].
