The 30% drop in UK area is at odds to the 30% increase in the rest of the continent in the same period, which has continued to grow steadily since the start of the decade.

The biggest increases came in Bulgaria, Croatia, France and Cyprus, which have been major contributors to the 4.4% annual increase rate.

In 2016, almost 12m hectares within the EU were fully converted or under organic conversion, which represented 6.7% of the EU’s land mass. However, the size of the organic area differs substantially among member states, and in absolute terms four member states accounted for 54.4% of the total organic area in Europe.

Highest level

Austria had the highest level of organic land, with 21.1% of farmland being farmed organically, followed by Sweden, Estonia and Italy.

In the UK, half a million hectares of utilised agricultural area is farmed under organic conditions, which equates to 3% of all agricultural land.

This ranks the UK alongside the Czech Republic and Portugal.