Area under organic farming

Czechia already has one of the highest shares of organic production in the EU and intends to maintain this positive growth. Significant growth occurred between 2005 and 2011, bolstered by EU subsidies after accession. However, the number of eco-farms stagnated from 2011 to 2014 due to the limitation on new entries into the programme, but a resurgence has been observed since 2015. Despite the growing trend, the organic food market remains small, accounting for just 1.6% of total consumption in 2022. Due to the lack of processing capacities, some Czech organic produce continues to be processed as conventional or exported as raw material. The development of domestic processing and distribution networks is mainly hindered by the low demand for organic food from consumers, which can be partly explained by the decreasing purchasing power of the population. In Czechia, organic farming has been developed mainly on permanent grassland, which accounted for 78.7% of organic farming in 2023. Although the share of arable land under organic farming is increasing, maintaining the current trend will not achieve the national target of 22% organically managed land (see graph), with 30% of that being arable, by 2027.