Weekly organic food buyers in Great Britain 2017, by food type
Organic farming
Organic farming is characterized by the use of fertilizers that come from organic sources. Roughly 50 percent of British farmers use farmyard manure from cattle and close to forty percent use no organic fertilizers at all. Other techniques, among them mixed cropping, crop rotation, and biological pest control, are applied while synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are restricted or prohibited depending on different standards. What exactly qualifies a product for certification, which must be obtained in many countries for a food to be considered organic, varies by authority.
Organic products and production
In 2017, The organic market in the UK was estimated to be worth 2.22 billion British pounds. The biggest driver of growth is chilled food. The UK has almost 500 thousand hectares of farmland that is used for the production of organic goods. In 2017, roughly 6,500 enterprises in the UK work in production and/or processing of organic products.