Less jobs in agri-sector

Less jobs in the European Agriculture sector. According to Eurostat, the employment in agriculture in the EU decreased by 25% between 2000 and 2009, a loss of 11.2 million jobs.

 The largest decreases were registered in Bulgaria and Slovakia with 50% jobs lost. While in Western Europe these decreases were less, but still the turnover in the agricultural sector fell by 11.6% between 2000 and 2009.

This can be partly attributed to lower prices of cereals being -27.1% and dairy products (-20.6%) in the period under review. Also prices of oil seeds, olive oil and fruit have dropped.

Another reasons are a drop in the production of agricultural products in Europe was caused by smaller farms closing down due to strict EU regulations and no follow up in the family. Farms that could survive in some countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and France, have become much larger. For example in the Netherlands, the number of 'Mega-farms', dealing in e.g. 400 cows or 12,000 pigs or operating on 385 ha arable land, has doubled between 1986 and 2006. Now the Netherlands has 1,600 Mega-farms representing 2% of the total amount of farms, but accounting for 22% of total production capacity.

There are still big differences in turnover of the agricultural sectors in Western and Eastern EU member states. The average farmer in the Netherlands or Denmark earns around € 30,000 per years, while a farmer in Estonia earns a tenth of this, i.e. € 3,000.

Published on 19 May 2010