Olive Groves Lead the Way in Efforts to Boost Organic Farming in Spain

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Spain is well on its way to accom­plish­ing one of the main sus­tain­abil­ity goals set out by the European Commission ear­lier this year, accord­ing to Luis Planas, the min­is­ter of agri­cul­ture, fish­eries and food.

In March, the com­mis­sion announced a plan to grow the share of agri­cul­tural land under organic farm­ing prac­tices to 25 per­cent by 2030. Planas said that 10 per­cent of Spain’s agri­cul­tural lands are already organ­i­cally cul­ti­vated as of last year.

Leading the way are the country’s olive groves. According to data from the min­istry, one in 10 hectares of organ­i­cally cul­ti­vated farm­land in Spain is ded­i­cated to olive groves. Organic olive groves cover 222,723 hectares – an area larger than Luxembourg – across 16 of the country’s 17 autonomous com­mu­ni­ties.

Combined, organic olive groves account for an annual yield of about 326,000 tons of olives, of which 99 per­cent are used for olive oil pro­duc­tion.

Andalusia is home to the largest share of organic olive groves – 88,691 hectares – and about 1.1 mil­lion hectares of organic crop­lands, in gen­eral. Castilla-La Mancha fol­lows closely behind with 74,154 hectares of organic olive groves and 423,000 hectares of organic farm­land.

Cantabria, located on Spain’s north­ern coast­line with the Bay of Biscay, is the only autonomous com­mu­nity with no organic olive groves.

Of the eight main per­ma­nent crops tracked by the min­istry, there are more olive groves than any other type. Tree nuts are the sec­ond-largest cat­e­gory, with 196,941 hectares ded­i­cated to organic cul­ti­va­tion.

Olive groves are also the sec­ond-fastest-grow­ing cat­e­gory of crop enter­ing organic cul­ti­va­tion.

In 2020, 16,600 hectares of olive groves were cer­ti­fied organic for the first time. A fur­ther 19,400 hectares are in the process of organic con­ver­sion. Almonds are the only crop that expe­ri­enced faster growth rates of organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Overall, Spain expe­ri­enced a 3.5 per­cent increase in its organic crop­lands in 2020, arriv­ing at a total of 2,437,891 hectares. Only Australia and Argentina ded­i­cate more land to organic farm­ing.

Along with the increase in organic farm­ing, the min­istry said the num­ber of pro­duc­ers cer­ti­fied as organic had also increased by six per­cent in 2020. There are now 44,493 organic farm­ing oper­a­tions in the coun­try.

• Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
• Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food