Brussels, 17/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - In the 27 member states of the EU, there were just over 12 million agricultural holdings in 2010, a 19.8% drop from 2003, the latest census carried out by the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) has revealed. Over the same period the area of land used for agriculture fell much less, by 1.6%, so that the trend is for larger farms.
Last year, seven member states accounted for more than 80% of agricultural holdings in the EU27: Romania (3.9 million holdings or 32.0% of the EU27 total), Italy (1.6 million, 13.5%), Poland (1.5 million, 12.5%), Spain (1.0 million in 2009, 8.2%), Greece (0.7 million, 5.9%), Hungary (0.6 million, 4.8%) and France (0.5 million, 4.3%). Between 2003 and 2010, the number of agricultural holdings decreased in all member states, with the exceptions of Malta and Sweden. The largest decreases were observed in Estonia (down 46.6%), Bulgaria (44.2%), Latvia (34.4%) and Poland (30.7%).
Seven member states account for almost 75% of utilised agricultural area in the EU27: France leads the way by some distance (27.1 million ha or 15.9%) followed by Spain (23.8 million ha in 2009, 14.0%), Germany (16.7 million ha, 9.8%), the United Kingdom (15.9 million ha, 9.4%), Poland (14.4 million ha, 8.5%), Romania (13.3 million ha, 7.8%) and Italy (12.9 million ha, 7.6%). In 2010, the largest average holdings were found in the Czech Republic (152 hectares per holding), the United Kingdom (79 ha), Denmark (65 ha), Luxembourg (59 ha), Germany (56 ha) and France (53 ha), and the smallest in Malta (1 ha), Cyprus and Romania (both 3 ha). (LC/transl.rt)