Over the past 20 years, the total number of agricultural holdings has reduced by 31.7 % while the average size of a holding has increased 2.3 times, according to the provisional Integrated Farm Statistics 2023 compiled by the Central Statistical Bureau.
Agricultural area occupied 1.97 million hectares in 2023 and has not changed over the last three years. The average size of a farm has been growing gradually and last year it reached 34.8 hectares of agricultural land and 7.7 livestock units.
Compared to 2020, the number of small holdings managing under 10 hectares of agricultural area has reduced by 8.2 thousand in 2023. The number of large holdings managing more than 100 hectares of agricultural area has increased by 0.2 thousand. Last year, large holdings were managing 68.9 % of the total agricultural area (8 % more than 2020) and farming 54 % of the total livestock (2.4 % more than in 2020).
One economically active holding was managing an average of 34.8 ha of agricultural area (6.3 ha more than in 2020). Over the past three years, the average area of both arable land and sown area per one holding has increased – by 4.3 ha or 22.5 % and 4.1 ha or 22.4 %, respectively.
