Organic farming research and innovation in Spain

Summary

Spain is one of the first countries in the EU in organic surface, with over 1.593.197 ha and with 32724 organic operators (mainly farmers). The Organic industry is increasing significantly. Most of the Organic production is “exported” to European countries and internal consumption of organic foods is still very low, but slowly increasing
Organic research and Organic innovation Projects are still low and strongly concentrated in certain topic areas and forgotten other relevant topics. But this activities are increasing the contribution of Organic farming to the development of the agricultural sector.
Most of the research are supported by publics funds, guided by researchers. Organic farmers are collaborative with researchers but they are still not well organised to decide the research priorities. Also Organic processing companies, which are growing up in the last year 11,6% more than in 2011 (there are 4.127 organic industries in Spain), are not participating in research or innovation activities, but some of them are aware that they need more and more research to respond to the Organic markets demands. On the other hand Organic advisors are not a relevant sector and therefore they cannot influence research policies
This paper is collecting and analysing the main research topics and projects which are supported by public funds in Spain and detecting in which areas we should increase innovation and research to support organic farming sector developement and recommending some policies for this purpose.