Certified organic agricultural land is farmland that has passed government regulations for being classified as organic, such as using only natural substances for crop and livestock processes, and this land accounted for less than 1% of all agricultural land worldwide in 2010. According to the Organic Trade Association, about 91.4 million acres (37 million hectares) of land in the world was used for organic agriculture in 2010. This number was triple the amount from 1999 because demand for organic products increased worldwide. The most certified organic agricultural land was found in the Oceania region, including Australia and New Zealand, which had 29.9 million acres (12.1 million hectares). By comparison, North America had 6.4 million acres (2.6 million hectares) of certified organic agricultural land.
More about organic agriculture:
- About 12% of produce in grocery stores is organic, but this number can vary widely depending on the specific store, because certain sellers focus more on organic products than others do.
- In 2012, the country with the most organic food sales was the United States, at $26.7 billion US Dollars (USD), followed by Germany at $8.4 billion USD and France at $4.7 billion USD.
- The country with the most certified organic farmers in 2010 was India, which had about 400,500 of them.