My Organics Are Bigger than Yours
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 03. 3.08
Italian organic lentils, via Chiara S. on Flickr.
Many biodynamic moons ago we reported that Australia had the world’s largest area of organically farmed land. That remains the case three years on. But so does the caveat that it is mostly due to that land being for very low-intensity animal grazing. But a publication entitled The World of Organic Agriculture: Statistics and Emerging Trends 2007, finds other ways to measure a countries contribution to the growth in organic agriculture.
Editors Helga Willer and Minou Yuseffi have rustled up a huge ste of stats from around the world to shed some light on the topic. Turns out that Liechtenstein has the most area of organically farmed land, as a percentage (27.9 %) of the country’s total agricultural land. Almost twice of the next nearest, Austria. Mexico romps home in first place with the biggest number of organic farms (83,174), roughly double the trailing countries.
Only one country performs consistently well in all three categories and that it is Italy. The fourth highest in area (1,067,102 million hectares), 8.4% of Italian land under agriculture is organic (fourth highest), and the second country with the most organic farms (44,733). ::World of Organic Agriculture at Organic ePrints, via Australian Organic Certified Magazine (print edition).
Australia, land of vast deserts, sure comes as a shocker. I am not so sure if there is any other type of of farming than organic in beautiful Liechtenstein.
There is a more recent version of this eprint available. Click here to view it. > http://orgprints.org/13123/
Oh... I was hoping to see New Zealand mentioned...
Society is funny. First we were trapped on the family farm, traded our brawn, morality and beauty for jobs with the 'man', now we are headed back to an organic life. We will bring with us all that modern technology has to offer, and probably will have a more comfortable and healthier time of it. The 'Man' will try to follow us there with taxes for him to pay for his wild dreams, but this time, he will have to back down because we are educated enough to not be taken advantage of, and numerous enough to out vote his lunacies.