The organic vineyard in Italy exceeds 127,000 hectares, 18.1% of the total vineyard area

The world’s organic vineyard reached the figure of 562,000 hectares in 2022, 8.3% of the total area under vine, with Italy obviously playing a leading role with 127,638 hectares, 18.1 % of its total vineyard (and 22.7 % worldwide, ed.), and of these 103,576 hectares are converted. This is stated in “The World of Organic Agriculture - Statistics and Emerging Trends” 2024, the report published by the Organic Agriculture Research Institute Fibl with the international organization Ifoam, a benchmark for organic agriculture.
Italy ranks third in terms of organic vineyard area, behind France (157,358 hectares) and Spain (149,934) the three “bigs” that add up to almost all the “green” vineyards on the globe. Far behind, in fact, are China (18,000 hectares), the United States (17,111 hectares), Germany (13,800 hectares), Austria (9,901 hectares), Argentina (9,838 hectares), Turkey (9,573 hectares) and Chile (6,590 hectares). France has 20.7% of the area planted with organic vines, Spain 16.1%, best of all is Belgium with 32.5%, but with truly limited production. Of the total 562,000 hectares, more than 490,000 are in Europe: in the European Union, the area planted with organic vines covers 12.6% and has grown by 2.3% over 2021, a trend also followed by Italy but which, as we reported in WineNews, does not automatically translate into organic wine produced.
Overall, however, organic continues its growth, involving as many as 188 countries covering 96.4 million hectares (it was 15 million in 2000) with Australia leading the way and covering more than half of the total area (53 million hectares). Organic accounts for 2% of the world’s agriculture, with a 26.6 percent increase in hectares under cultivation over 2021, for 4.5 million total producers.
Italy is among the main players in the “organic” world, and not only, of course, for wine: third country in Europe, behind France and Spain in terms of surface area of organic land (2.3 million out of the 16.9 million in the 27-country EU); second place for growth between 2021 and 2022, only Greece does better, with 163,700 more hectares. And again, unchallenged leadership as the number of producers, 82,593, compared to 480,135 on the entire continent and 419,112 in the European Union, and nearly 24,000 processors, another record for a country that has 17.9% of its agriculture organic.