The number of farms in the EU fell by 5.3 million in a 15-year period from 2005 to 2020, according to the EU’s statistics agency.
Data published this week by Eurostat shows that there were 9.1 million farms in the EU in 2020, a decline of around 37% compared to 2005.
The decline in some farm types was more stark than others.
Of the 5.3 million farms that closed down in that 15-year period, 2.6 million were mixed farms, 1.6 million were livestock specialist farms, and around 900,000 were crop specialist farms (a specialist farm is one where over two-thirds of the output is one farming activity).
The Eurostat data also gave a breakdown of the current make-up of the 9.1 million farms active in the EU in 2020.
Almost three-fifths (58%) of all farms that year were categorised as specialist crop farms, while just over one-third (34%) specialised in field cropping.
About one-fifth (22%) were involved in permanent crops and a small share (about 2%) was involved in horticulture.
Slightly above one-fifth (22%) of the EU’s farms in 2020 were classed as specialist livestock farms, with specialisation in dairying being the most common type (5% of all farms), followed by cattle rearing and fattening, poultry, sheep, goats, and other grazing livestock.
Around 19% of EU farms in 2020 were mixed farms, meaning that they had multiple crops and/or livestock without a single activity making up two-thirds of output.
Around 1% of all farms could not be classified because they produce goods for which no standard output can be calculated.
Just over half (52%) of the EU’s utilised agricultural area (UAA) was found on crop specialist farms in 2020, with about one-third (33%) on livestock specialist farms, and the remainder on mixed farms (15%).
On a country level, the share of UAA under each farming type strongly correlated with the number of farms by type.
In 2020, Ireland had the second-highest percentage of farms that specialised in livestock, with 79% of our farms falling into that category.
Countries in northwest Europe generally had higher shares of specialist livestock farms compared to other regions of the continent.
Eastern European countries were found to have greater shares of crop specialist farms, such as Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania, whose shares of crop specialist farms stood at 73%, 72%, and 67% respectively.
Mediterranean countries were also found to have large shares of crop specialist farms, including Greece (74%), Malta (63%), and Croatia (61%).