ZAGREB, July 2, 2018 - There were 4,023 organic farmers in Croatia in 2017, which is 477 more farmers or 14% more than in 2016, show data from the national statistical office (DZS). The number of organic farmers who also process organic produce stood at 357, a 14.4% increase.
The land used for organic farming covered 96,618 hectares, 3.2% or just over 3,000 hectares more than in 2016.
The DZS data show that there was no organic sugar beet farming last year, which resulted in a 38.5% decrease (to 800 tonnes) in the production of root crops. At the same time, the production of industrial crops grew by close to 52% to 27,816 tonnes.
The production of free-range eggs dropped 17% to 206,000 eggs as did the production of organic honey, by 38.3% to 29 tonnes.
The production of goat's milk dropped 17.6% to 84 tonnes, while the production of raw cow's milk dropped 12.9% to 5,671 tonnes.
As for organic animal farming, the DZS data show that the number of pigs increased the most, by 36%, as did the number of cattle (+19.3%), sheep (+8.9%) and goats (+9.8%).
Organic poultry farming dropped by 35.8% and the number of bee colonies decreased by 16.7%.
