The president of Spain’s organic producer association Ecovalia has emphasised the country’s “key role” in the “unstoppable growth” of organic food and farming worldwide.
The comments came at a presentation of Ecovalia’s Annual Report on Organic Production in Spain 2020, at Caixa Forum Madrid last week.
Quoting latest research from FiBL and IFOAM, along with data gathered by Ecovalia, Álvaro Barrera said that Spain continues to be the country in Europe with the largest amount of land under organic production. Worldwide, only Australia, Argentina and China have more organic farmland. Impressively, nearly 10% (9.7%) of Spain’s productive farmland is under organic systems.
Barrera said that organic “continues (its) unstoppable growth” and the global market was worth over EUR97 million (at the end of 2018).
Commenting that organic farmland globally now stands at over 70 million hectares, he said that a strong performance by Spain “plays a key role, which is endorsed by the good work of our country’s organic production and the added value it represents”. In addition, the new data highlighted Spain’s important contribution to the fulfilment of the global strategic development goals (SDGs), Barrera said.
Ecovalia’s latest report shows that the number of organic operators now totals 46,463, up 5.6% on the previous year. On average, Spaniards spent EUR 46.60 on organic in 2018, helping to take the value of the market to EUR2.13 billion.
Ecovalia is a premier sponsor of Organic Food Iberia, the leading organic trade show for the Iberian Peninsula. It takes place on 3-4 June 2020 at IFEMA Madrid.
Photo: Diego Granado, Ecovalia’s general secretary, presenting findings at last week’s event in Madrid. Ecovalia.
