Agriculture is bankrupt – there are fewer and fewer livestock keepers in Hungary
The number of people working in agriculture is on a declining trend throughout Europe, but unfortunately Hungary is no exception.
With more and more large economies, the EU is experiencing a significant decline in the number of farmers at EU level. Like Hungary, the number of livestock keepers has been drastically declining in recent years, wrote World economy.
In the European Union, more than half of farmers specialize in crop production and almost a quarter in animal husbandry. Sheep, goats and other grazed livestock are the most significant.
Mixed farms account for just over one-fifth of all agricultural holdings in the EU. In terms of their number, there was a significant shift from mixed farms to plants specializing in crop production between 2005 and 2016.
In terms of total number of farmers, most of the producers specializing in crop production in the EU are in Cyprus, Italy, Greece and Spain, with rates ranging from 70 to 80 per cent, unchanged since 2005. this proportion was around 50% in 2016, an increase compared to 2005, as in most Member States.
In Hungary, as well as in Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland, the number of livestock keepers has decreased the most in the last ten years, which can be clearly seen from the 2020 data of the CSO’s Agricultural Census.
Seven out of ten farm managers in the European Union have more than 10 million working farms. And the majority of farm managers are at least 55 years old, and only one in ten is young (under 40). It is clear from the Eurostat survey that older managers tend to work on smaller farms, while younger ones tend to work on larger ones. Between 2005 and 201, the number of farmers fell by almost 30.