Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the proportion of UK farming that will be organic by 2030.

In 2019, the UK had a total area of 485,000 hectares of land farmed organically (i.e. the fully converted area and area under conversion), an increase of 2.4% compared with 2018. The organically farmed area represents 2.7% of the total farmed area on agricultural holdings in the UK. The newly updated figures from the Defra statistics team covering 2020 will be available next month.

It is difficult to make a prediction of what the figures will be in 2030 given the inherent uncertainties in predicting growth of the sector, which will ultimately be up to the business decisions of individual producers.

We believe that the best way to ensure a sustainable and productive organics sector is to take a producer led approach, allowing individual farmers to make decisions about the rate at which they want to expand their land under organic management based on their own best judgement and the market conditions. The schemes that reward environmental land management will also provide incentives for farmers to support the environment and communities.