Area under organic farming

Monitoring trends in the agricultural surface area cultivated using organic production methods enables the assessment of the spread and uptake of practices aiming to protect environmental quality, thus improving biodiversity and the healthiness of food, along with the well-being of livestock.

At the EU level, Italy has one of the highest shares of organic agricultural area. In 2020, the share of organic agricultural area in the EU-27 represented 9.1% of the total utilised agricultural area (UAA).

As of 31 December 2023, the area under organic production in Italy was almost 2.46 million ha, growing by 120% compared with the 2010 reference year and 4.5% compared with the previous year. The share of the certified organic area in the total UAA amounted to 19.8%. Moreover, in the last 33 years, the area under organic production has been increasing, in terms of both operators and cultivated area.

Based on these data, it is reasonable to predict that Italy will achieve the EU strategy objective by 2030. The more ambitious 2023–2027 national strategic plan for common agricultural policy, which aims to increase the area under organic production to 25% by 2027, has been added to the farm-to-fork strategy, which has the same goal for 2030.