The Organic Agriculture Committee of the Valencian Community (CAECV) is the control authority responsible for certifying organic agri-food products of plant or animal origin, processed or unprocessed, obtained in the Valencian Community. Any operator located in the Valencia Region who produces, prepares, stores or imports organic products from a third country is obliged to notify this activity and submit to control by the CAECV.
Organic farming has tripled in the Valencian Community over the last decade and is present in 92% of the municipalities. Of the 542 municipalities that make up our territory, 501 have some type of organic farming, covering a surface area of 153,779 hectares (20.5% of the certified surface area). In terms of operators, there are currently 4,636 operators dedicated to organic farming with an average age of 48 years, 30% of whom are women.
Organic production has great potential in the Valencian Community due to the natural conditions of our territory, with a great diversity and quality of crops accompanied by extensive tradition and agricultural heritage, so it could be said that organic farming is the natural vocation of the Valencian countryside.
In 2023, the land devoted to this type of crops increased by 0.2% over 2022 and reached 153,779 hectares. In this surface area, the area of forest land and wild plants is counted, in order to homologate the data with those of Eurostat. By provinces, Valencia was the one with the largest area dedicated to this type of crop, with 81,101 hectares, followed by Alicante with 40,021 hectares and Castellón with 32,657 hectares. It was in the province of Alicante where there was the greatest year-on-year increase in the area devoted to organic farming (+4.9%), in Valencia there was no significant variation while Castellón decreased by 4.7%.
The area dedicated to organic farming represents 6.6% of the Total Agricultural Area (SAT) and 20.5% of the Useful Agricultural Area (UAA), which puts us very close to the EU's Sustainable Development Goals ODS 2030, according to which 25% of the cultivated area must correspond to organic production.