Spain has the largest organic acreage in Europe

According to the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and Environment, half of the co…

According to the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and Environment, half of the country's organic acreage last year corresponded to permanent pastures, one-quarter to arable land crops and the other quarter to permanent crops. Moreover, it stressed that the acreage considered to be in conversion to organic "tripled" during the year 2016 compared to the previous year.

When it comes to operators, the Ministry claims that the total number has increased by 5.3 percent, to 39,744, with "an increase in all categories": producers (4.4 percent), industrialists (9 percent), importers (23 percent), exporters (27 percent) and traders (17 percent).

As far as plant production is concerned, the Government has highlighted the expansion of the acreage devoted to cereals, tubers, vegetables, fruit trees, nuts, citrus and vineyards.

Regarding the agro-food industries, a "positive growth" (9 percent) was recorded in 2016 and there was a total of 5,663 facilities involved in vegetable production and 952 involved in animal production.

Controls
According to the Government, organic products are subject to official controls regulated by Community legislation, within the framework of the National Plan for the Official Control of the Food Chain, which requires at least one annual visit to the different operators.

The Government has reported that a total of 46,632 official controls were carried out in 2016, and that during the course of these controls, 4,473 samples were analysed, or 11 percent of the total. Of these, 7 percent yielded unfavourable analytical results.