Indicator 2.1.b Organic farming

Text from the Indicator Report 2022 

Data on organic farming are collected by the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) and by the Federal Statistical Office.

The Federal Statistical Office uses various surveys to determine the amount of organically farmed land. Agricultural area is recorded by primary statistical methods in a structural survey. Since not every year is covered in the survey, data for interim years are calculated by an estimation procedure. The reference value for the proportional computation is the amount of utilised agricultural area determined annually as part of the land use survey. The reporting date is 01 March of the respective year. The utilised agricultural area includes all areas and sub-areas used for agricultural or horticultural purposes. Building and farmyard areas of agricultural holdings are therefore not included in the reference value.

The data collected by the BMEL include details of the amount of organically farmed land reported annually by the organic regulatory authorities of the Länder. The reporting date is 31 December of a year. All reports for a current year are accumulated no later than the reporting date. The data from the BMEL contain slightly higher values. Amongst others, this is due to the fact that areas without a cut-off threshold are related to all areas with a cut-off threshold. This means that very small areas are also included in the numerator when calculating the proportion, whereas only areas above a certain minimum size are taken into account in the denominator.

According to data from the Federal Statistical Office, the share of organically farmed land increased from 2.9 % to 9.5 % between 1999 and 2021. As a result, in 2021 this amounted to an area of 1.61 million hectares. The data from the BMEL indicate a slightly higher share of organically farmed land in total agricultural land due to the methodology employed. Consequently, the value for 2021 was 10.9 % or 1.80 million hectares.

Based on data from the Federal Statistical Office, the share of organically farmed agricultural land will be 14.9 % in 2030 if the trend continues at the level recorded in the preceding five reporting years. Hence, neither the target of reaching 30 % nor the outdated 20 % target of organically farmed agricultural land by 2030 would be met.

Germany’s organically farmed land was used as follows in 2021: 50.6 % as permanent pasture, 47.8 % for arable land and 1.6 % for other land. In contrast, the main focus of agriculture as a whole was on arable land (70.3 %), while the share of permanent pasture was 28.5 % and other land accounted for 1.2 % of the total utilised agricultural area. According to the results of the 2020 farm structure survey, Saarland held the largest share of organically farmed land among all Länder (around 18.0 %), followed by Hessen (15.0 %) and Brandenburg (13.3 %). The conversion to organic farming is promoted to varying degrees by the individual Länder.

According to Eurostat statistics, a total area of 14.7 million hectares was organically farmed in the states of the EU-27 in 2020. This corresponded to a share of 9.1 % of total agriculturally used area. In regards to the total utilised agricultural area in individual EU countries, the highest share of organic farming land was recorded in Austria (25.7 %), followed by Estland (22.4 %), Sweden (20.3 %), Italy (16.0 %) and the Czech Republic (15.3 %)

The synoptic table provides information about the evaluation of the indicator in previous years. It shows if the weather symbol assigned to an indicator was rather stable or volatile in the past years. (Evaluation of the Indicator Report 2022 )

Indicator	2.1.b Organic farming
Target	Increase the proportion of organically farmed agricultural land to 30 % by 2030
Year	2018	2019	2020	2021
Evaluation