Recent trends in the distribution of farm sizes in the EU

Laurent Piet (1)

1 SMART-LERECO - Structures et Marché Agricoles, Ressources et Territoires

Over the last decades, the number of farms has been decreasing and the average operated area has been increasing all over the European Union. This paper aims at studying the distribution of farm sizes across the 27 EU Member states both at the national and regional levels, and how it evolved from 2005 to 2013. Using two indicators of farm size, namely the median size of farms and the hectare-weighted median size of farms, along with two indicators of farm-size inequality, the Gini coefficient and the Herfindahl-Hirschman index, it shows that a variety of situations exists across Europe but that the overall tendency is that of a general increase in farm sizes which most often results in an increase in farm-size inequality and concentration.

Mots clés: farm size distribution; inequality; parametric Lorenz curve; gini coefficient; herfindahl-hirschman index; european union; farm size; indicator; index

Mots clés: taille de l'exploitation; inégalité; répartition agricole; union européenne; indicateur; coefficient de gini; indice

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Laurent Piet. Recent trends in the distribution of farm sizes in the EU. 149. EAAE Seminar ‘Structural change in agri-food chains: new relations between farm sector, food industry and retail sector’, Institut National de Recherche Agronomique (INRA). UMR Structures et Marchés Agricoles, Ressources et Territoires (1302)., Oct 2016, Rennes, France. ⟨hal-01512245⟩