Hemp in Europe: area and output, country by country

The hemp page published by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture shows a clear rise: area grown for fibre goes from 20 540 ha in 2015 to 33 020 ha in 2022, a 60% increase, and output from 97 130 t to 179 020 t, or 84.3%. The same page adds the breakdown of output: France first with more than 60% of the European total, ahead of Germany (17%) and the Netherlands (5%). Between them, those three shares therefore exceed 82%.

The Eurostat database queried on 16 September 2026 tells the same story with different decimals: 20 850 ha in 2015 and 32 260 ha in 2022, for 99 130 t then 177 590 t. The gap comes down to the extraction date, since agricultural series are revised, and to scope: the Commission's page speaks of area dedicated to fibre. We were unable to reconcile the two sets line by line, so both are given with their source.

One caveat on the 82% share: it covers output in 2022, not area, and we were unable to recompute it. The Eurostat country series holds no output value at all for Germany between 2015 and 2024, every one of them flagged as unreliable, with a first estimate of only 33 000 t for 2025. The figure therefore remains the Commission's, quoted as such.

Eurostat values for the EU 27, converted from the thousands of hectares and thousands of tonnes used in the database. Output for 2020 is not reported, so that row has been removed.

The curve is not a steady climb. It rises until 2019, falls back three years running to the trough of 2023, then picks up again above the 2019 level.

Eurostat area figures for the most recent year available at the date of consultation. Shares are calculated on the EU 27 total of 37 830 ha.

Two reading precautions. Eurostat flags the 2025 values for Lithuania and Poland as estimated and the Spanish one as provisional; the other rows carry no flag at all. And the eleven countries listed add up to 34 490 ha: the remaining 3 340 ha are spread across the other member states.

The order of the top three has held for a decade, with very different swings behind it. France gains 8 050 ha between 2019 and 2025; Italy falls from 910 to 510 ha over the same period; Austria goes from 2 010 to 690 ha. Belgium, for its part, starts at 100 ha in 2019 and reaches 880 ha in 2025.

An area of hemp is not an area of flower. The FranceAgriMer sector sheet, January 2024 edition, describes an open-field crop whose straw yield ranges from 6 to 8 t/ha for a fibre content of around 25%, and whose grain yield is close to 1 t/ha. The plant is then split into four products: seed (10% of weight, 21% of value), shiv (45% of weight, 27% of value), fibre (28% of weight, 50% of value) and dust (18% of weight, 2% of value).

End uses confirm that industrial bent. Still according to FranceAgriMer, fibre goes into paper making (50%), insulation (29%), plastics and textiles (10% each); shiv serves as animal bedding (51%), mulch (28%) and building material (20%). None of the European series quoted here isolates the flowering top. For the long history of this crop and its uses, our history of hemp in France and in Europe picks up the thread from the age of sail.

The Commission adds an agronomic figure that is often quoted: one hectare of hemp stores 9 to 15 tonnes of CO2. InterChanvre gives the same range, expressed per hectare and per year.

FranceAgriMer, in that same sheet, places France third in the world behind China and Canada, and first in Europe with more than a third of the area under cultivation. It counts 19 500 ha grown in 2022 by more than 1 500 producers, an area multiplied fivefold in thirty years from 4 000 ha in 1990, 126 750 t of decorticated straw over the 2022/2023 season, and 7 hemp mills located in the northern half of the country in 2023, employing more than 200 staff. On the trade side, exports go from 415 t in 2021/2022 to 21 460 t in 2022/2023, against 279 t imported.

The sector document published by InterChanvre in 2023 gives 19 500 ha for 2023 and a forecast of 23 000 ha for 2024, 1 700 producers, 6 hemp mills, 300 mill employees, more than 141 000 t of decorticated straw a year and an area multiplied threefold in ten years. The crop is grown there without plant protection products and without irrigation.

That same document is a good illustration of the denominator trap. It puts European area at 53 624 ha in 2023, down 7.86% year on year, and infers from it that France accounts for more than 37.3% of the area. Eurostat, for the same year, gives 29 030 ha for the EU 27 and 19 610 ha for France, which comes to 68%. Both calculations are right; it is the European perimeter that is not drawn in the same place. Quoting a share without quoting its denominator means nothing.

The common agricultural framework sets a few verifiable conditions. The variety grown must test below 0.3% THC and come from certified seed listed in the common catalogue of agricultural species, which held 116 hemp varieties in 2024. Raw hemp under customs code 5302 10 must not exceed 0.3% THC on import, under the licence provided for by Article 189 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013. Three countries pay coupled support for hemp: France, Poland and Romania.

These rules govern the plant in the field. They say nothing about the finished product sold in a shop, whose compliance is read batch by batch on the certificate of analysis, with the French limit of 0.30% set out in our article on the legal THC level. How to read a certificate is described on the our laboratory page, and the question of provenance in our guide to French origin and labels. The catalogue's references state their origin on each listing in the CBD flower category. These products are for adults only and are not foodstuffs; the most common compliance questions are gathered in the frequently asked questions.

• European Commission, Directorate-General for Agriculture, "Hemp" page (area 2015-2022, country shares, 116 varieties in 2024, code 5302 10; consulted on 16 September 2026)
• Eurostat, apro_cpsh1 database, crop production in standard humidity (area and output 2015-2025, updated 10 September 2026)
• FranceAgriMer, hemp sector sheet, January 2024 edition (19 500 ha in 2022, 126 750 t, 7 hemp mills, end uses)
• InterChanvre, La filière chanvre française, 2023 (53 624 ha in Europe, 1 700 producers, yields)
• Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013, Article 189 (hemp import licence)
• Légifrance, arrêté du 30 décembre 2021 (French order of 30 December 2021, 0.30% THC limit)
• Phytogrammes, "Our laboratory" page