Farm Structure and Land Concentration in Romania and the European Union's Agriculture

Abstract

The present paper aimed to make an empirical analysis of farm structure and land concentration in Romania and the EU-28 in the period 2003-2013. Index method, comparison method, Gini coefficient and index, and concentration index were used to characterize the dynamics and structure of the number of holdings, utilized agricultural area, standard output, average farm size in terms of land area and standard output, concentration degree of land in the top 10% largest farms. While the number of farms is going down, the average holding size increased to 3.66 ha/farm in Romania and 16.1 ha the EU-28. About 0.57% of farms with more than 50 ha are working 52.43% of the utilized land. Economic efficiency of the Romanian agriculture is the smallest in the EU, Euro 3.30 thousand/farm, 10.7 times less than the EU average. About 83% of the farms produced less than Euro 4,000/holding. The unequal concentration of farms in Romania is attested by Gini value 0.582, and Concentration index 73% meaning that the top 10% farms keep a huge agricultural land, compared to the farms belonging to other size classes. Romania comes on the following positions in the EU-28: 1st position for the number of holdings (33.6%), 6th position for the utilized area (7.47%), 26th position for average farm size (3.6 ha), 27th position for the number of farms with more than 50 ha (0.57%), 20th position for the land worked by the farms with over 50 ha (52.13%), 28th position for standard output/farm (Euro 3.3 thousand), 6th position for its contribution to the EU standard output, 6th position for Gini coefficient value and Concentration index which included the country in the sharp dual category. So, farm structure and land concentration in Romania is running on the right way, but it is still a long-term process to the optimal farm size which could assure a higher economic efficiency.