Income up – Austrian farms are getting bigger, but less

Nearly 155,000 agricultural and forestry companies ensure our safe food supply. However, according to a new survey by Statistics Austria, the number of farms has fallen by 11 percent, or 18,000, since 2010. Decades of structural change have thus continued, albeit weakened, says Agriculture Minister Norbert Totschnig: “This shows that agricultural policies such as organic, environmental and mountain farmer support are having an effect.” 22 percent of the area and 26 percent of the farms are already grown organically. The record holder is Salzburg with 52 percent organic acreage.

Farms got bigger
At the same time, farms (35 percent run by women) have become more competitive as the average size per farm has increased by a good quarter to 23.6 hectares over the past decade. Most of the abandoned farms have been taken over by neighbors. This means that the agricultural area has decreased by six percent to 6.9 million hectares. But even our larger farms are dwarfs by comparison. A German farmer has an average of 63 hectares, a Dane even 75 hectares for cultivation.

Thanks to higher product prices, farmers were able to increase their net profit after lean years by six percent to 2.1 billion euros in 2021. The production value rose by eleven percent to 8.5 billion euros.