Over the past few years, the number of farms, particularly farms “mixed” (combining crops and livestock) has shrunk in the European Union. In 2020, there were 9.1 million farms left, an estimated decline of 37%, or regarding 5.3 million fewer farms than in 2005, 15 years earlier, according to a Eurostat article published on Monday.
The statistical agency of the European Union observes that it is above all mixed farms, which are not “specialized“, which have tended to disappear: their number has shrunk by around 2.6 million over the period 2005-2020. They now represent 19% of all farms in the EU. These farms manage various types of crops and/or breeding, without a single activity dominating the others in terms of financial income.
58% of European farms specialize in crops, mostly (a large third of all farms) in field crops. Permanent crops (fruit trees, for example) come next (22% of the total), horticulture being the specialization of only a small portion (2%) of existing farms. 22% of farms specialize in livestock farming, primarily for dairy production (5%).
Farms specializing in crops also take the lion’s share in terms of surface area. They occupy just over half (52%) of the utilized agricultural area (a concept that includes arable land, meadows and permanent crops, vegetable gardens) across the EU.
It is in the Mediterranean and Eastern European countries (Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Malta, etc.) that their share of agricultural area is the largest, clearly dominant (more than 60%) compared to other types of farms.
Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are among the European countries that are at the other end of the spectrum, with a much smaller area for farms specializing in crops, which are clearly dominated by specialists in livestock.
