Hungary ranks high on the list defining the yellow future
The European Union is already the world’s second largest single market for organic products after the United States, and record growth has been brought about by changes in consumption patterns during the pandemic. According to the latest international data, the share of agricultural land in Hungary is 6%. We are ranked 10th in the world in terms of the absolute size of organic fruit production, writes the Research Institute for Organic Agriculture (ÖMKi).
The International Umbrella Organization for Organic Farming (IFOAM) and the Swiss Research Institute for Organic Agriculture (FiBL) have provided a comprehensive overview of the international situation of organic farming for the 23rd time this year.
The statistical yearbook “The World Organic Agriculture 2022” shows that in 2020, 3.4 million farmers engaged in organic production on more than 74.9 million hectares. The biggest ecological areas Australia, Argentina and Uruguay. Liechtenstein (41.6 per cent), Austria (26.5 per cent) and Estonia (22.4 per cent) converted the largest share of agricultural land to ecology during the period under review.
Record growth in Europe
Europe had a record year in 2020 in terms of areas under organic farming and the size of the market. The market for organic products has reached € 52 billion and the area under organic farming has reached 17 million hectares. The organic room market 15 has grown compared to the previous year, which is the growth rate of the last decade.
As a result of the pandemic, organic markets showed double-digit growth in 2020 for the first time, simply because people worked mainly from home and cooked more often.
With almost 2.5 million hectares, France has become the new number one country in the EU in terms of the size of organic land, followed by Spain (2.4 million hectares), Italy (2.1 million hectares) and Germany (1.7 million hectares). ) ) follows. In terms of European organic retail sales, the largest market is still Germany (with € 14.99 billion).
Hungary is at the forefront of organic orchards and seed pods
With 301,403 hectares and a 6% share of land in 2020, we are still in the middle of Europe in terms of the domestic situation of organic farming. In 2020, more than 5,000 farmers, more than 500 processors and almost 50 companies importing from outside the EU were under organic control in 2020.
It is outstanding that 11.5 percent of the Hungarian fruit plantations, 7306 hectares, are organically cultivated, making Hungary the 10th largest temperate organic orchard country in the world.
Although organic is well known, organic farming also extends to fish farming. With a production of 1,743 tons, we are ranked 9th in the world in freshwater organic fish farming. It is also noteworthy that 24.2 percent of the area used for the production of legumes (lentils, fodder peas), ie almost 3,000 hectares of eco – cultivated Hungary, is revealed in the ÖMKI report.