Romania’s organic agricultural land is declining

The surface of land in Romania used for organic agriculture declined from over 301,000 hectares in 2013 to 246,000 hectares in 2015 and 226,000 hectares in 2016, according to statistics presented by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture – FiBL. Worldwide, the surface used for organic agriculture has been on an uptrend, reaching 57.8 million hectares. Most countries in Eastern Europe have seen an increase in the surfaces of land used for organic agriculture, except Romania and Poland, which have seen declines. Bulgaria almost tripled its organic agriculture land surface from 2013 until 2016, to 160,000 hectares. However, Romania was one of the countries with the largest organic wild collection and beekeeping areas in the world, with a surface of 1.8 million hectares. Romania was also in the top 10 worldwide for the number of organic beehives, with over 86,000. The number of organic producers in Romania was little over 10,000 in 2016. editor@romania-insider.com