64% of Romanian farms produced mainly for own consumption
This Statistics in Focus is part of a series of country-specific publications on the results of the Farm Structure Survey (FSS) 2007. It provides a brief but nevertheless comprehensive insight into the farm structure in Romania.
3 931 350 agricultural holdings were recorded in Romania in the Farm Structure Survey 2007 (7.6% fewer than in 2005).The average area per holding increased by 31 % reaching 11.0 ha.
* * *
Due to the different coverage of the FSS across Member States, the total number of farms is not
comparable between countries. This is why the present analysis, including Tables 1-4 and the graphs focus on holdings of at least one European Size Unit (ESU). See the methodological notes for more information on the concept of ESU.
In 2007, around 22% of the agricultural holdings (866 700) had an economic size of at least 1 ESU,
compared with 1 236 000 (which represent 29% of the holdings in the 2005 survey). This is a 30% reduction in holdings of at least 1 ESU. They used about 9.498 million ha of utilised agricultural area (UAA), a decrease of 8.1% in absolute values compared with 2005. But looking at the average UAA per holding, there is a significant increase (31%) from 8.4 ha in 2005 to 11.0 ha in 2007. These holdings employed 965 500 AWUs (annual work units), the equivalent of 965 500 people working full time; (28.8% less than 2005). They had 4.2 million livestock units (LSU) in 2007, 15% less than in 2005. There was a 21% increase in the average LSU per holding from 4 to 4.8. Amongst these 866 700 agricultural holdings: 54% made use of less than one AWU, while another 9% made use of 2 or more AWUs; 19% used less than 2 ha, while 1.6% used 50 ha or more; 64% produced mainly for own consumption, whereas 35% produced mainly for direct sales; 22% of Romanian farms specialised in mixed livestock, mainly grazing livestock; 21% specialised in mixed cropping;
12% of the holdings specialised in field crops – grazing livestock combined; 11% of the holdings specialised in general field cropping; 7% of the holdings farmed various crops and livestock combined.
The family labour force decreased by 24% between 2005 and 2007. Family labour force represented
86% of the total labour force in Romania.
Amongst the sole holders: 19% were women; 71% were aged 55 or more and 2.9% were younger than 35 years; 29% of the sole holders had another gainful activity in 2007.
In 2007 in Romania, 64% of the agricultural area was farmed by its owners. The 2007 results show that the area used for rape and turnip multiplied by 4 (from 83 300 ha to 342 700) in two years. On the other hand, the area sown with sunflower fell by 11%. The area used for cereals decreased by 18% between 2005 and 2007: common wheat and spelt decreased by 22%, barley by 23% and maize by 12%. In the same time fallow land increased by 20%.
Please read all statistics on Eurostat: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-SF-09-080/EN/KS-SF-09-080-EN.PDF
Posted: 3 December 2009 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none
