Only 4.8% of Dutch agricultural land organic

Only 4.8 percent of agricultural land in the Netherlands was organic in 2025, even as certified organic farmland continued to expand to 86.9 thousand hectares, according to final figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS).

The share of organic land was nearly unchanged from 2024, when it stood at 4.7 percent, and remains far below the national goal of at least 15 percent organic farmland by 2030, set under the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature “Action Plan – Growth of Organic Production and Consumption.”

Despite the small share, organic farmland has grown steadily over the long term, rising each year since 2015, when it covered 47.0 thousand hectares, to 86.9 thousand hectares in 2025.

Growth in 2025 amounted to 3.1 percent, driven by a net increase of just over 2.5 thousand hectares. That resulted from 7.8 thousand hectares being added to organic certification, while 5.3 thousand hectares were removed.

Land in conversion to organic farming totaled 6.2 thousand hectares in 2025, a decrease of 6.4 percent compared with a year earlier. Within that category, 4.1 thousand hectares entered conversion, while 4.4 thousand hectares left conversion status.

The number of organic land and horticulture farms remained broadly stable, declining by 12 compared with 2024. There are now more than 1.9 thousand certified organic farms in the Netherlands. These farms are also getting slightly larger, averaging 45.3 hectares in 2025, an increase of 1.6 hectares from the previous year.

Retention of organic certification remains high. Of the land certified organic in 2024, 93.8 percent remained certified in 2025. Between 2018 and 2025, an average of 94.1 percent of organic parcels retained their status year to year, indicating steady continuity even as total area increases gradually.