Type of indicator

Sectoral

Indicator C19

Agricultural area under organic farming

Definition

The indicator shows the area under organic farming. 

The indicator has 3 sub-indicators:

The area under organic farming is classified as follows:

Farming is considered to be organic if it complies with the relevant EU legislation.

The area defined refers to the Utilised agricultural area excluding kitchen garden as from the "Organic crop area by agricultural production methods and crops".

It might not be strictly comparable with the definition of UAA (only area of main crops) in the Farm Structure Survey (FSS).

Data on the area under organic farming at regional level come from the FSS.

Unit of measurement

1: share of total UAA

2-3: ha

Data source

Eurostat – Organic farming 

Eurostat – Farm Structure Survey (FSS)

References/location of the data

National data:

table Area under organic farming   [org_cropar] from 2012 onwards

Regional data: 

table Main farm land use by NUTS 2 regions [Ef_lus_main] contains data from 2013 onwards.

Data from FSS is available on request to Eurostat.

Data collection level

EU, national (NUTS 0) and regional (NUTS 1 and 2)

Frequency

Organic farming statistics: annual

For FSS data: full census every 10 years, intermediate surveys 2/3 times in-between.

Delay

FSS: 2-3 years

Comments/caveats

There are differences between national and regional data because the former is collected by Eurostat and the latter is based on the Farm structure survey (FSS).It means that the samples and data collection methods are different.

Variables for table [ef_mporganic]  : AGRAREA_HA (ha: Utilised agricultural area), A_3_2_1_HA (ha: Organic farming – certified), A_3_2_2_HA (ha: Farming system - Conversion to organic farming), A_3_2_3_HA (ha: Organic farming (incl. in conversion)).

For AT and DE data for the area under conversion to organic farming is not available