Austria Leads the Way in Organic Farming

In 2017, seven percent of all agricultural land in Europe was used for organic farming. Organic farming was particularly popular in Austria, where nearly one-quarter of the total farmland was used for organic production. In comparison, Iceland and Malta only used a mere 0.4 percent of their agricultural land for organic farming, and this number was only slightly higher in Ireland and Romania.

Despite the popularity of organic farming in Austria, it was neighboring Switzerland which topped the ranking of the per capita expenditure on organic groceries, at an impressive 337 U.S. dollars per person, before Denmark and Sweden. The share of organic farmland was well above the European average in all these countries too though, at 19.2 percent in Sweden, 14.5 percent in Switzerland and 8.6 percent in Denmark.