COMPARING THE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AND TURKEY FOR SOME ORGANIC PRODUCTS

Abstract

Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects.

The regions with the largest areas of organic agricultural land are Oceania (22,8 million ha, which is almost 45% of the world’s organic agricultural land) and Europe (12,7 million ha, 25%). Latin America has 6,7 million ha (13%) followed by Asia (4 million ha, 8%), North America (3 million ha, 6%) and Africa (1.7 million ha, 3%).

Organic agriculture in the world is developing rapidly. In 2015, organic agriculture is made in 179 countries on 51 million hectares. European and North American countries have the largest market share in 75.7 billion Euros organic product market.

In this study, comparative production advantages of selected organic products in European countries were calculated as an index on the basis of countries. The index used in the calculation is based on Balassa's index. Therefore organic and non-organic production quantities of selected products were used. These selected products were olives, grapes, apples, wheat, barley and potatoes. The data is obtained from the FAO and EUROSTAT databases covering the years 2012-2016.

According to the results, Slovenia has the largest share of organic olive production in European countries. The other countries that are leading in other organic production are: Belgium in organic grape production, Estonia in organic apple production, Italy in organic wheat and organic barley production, and Lithuania in organic potato production. The countries with the highest ratio of total organic crop area to total agricultural area are Liechtenstein, Austria and Sweden respectively.