Conclusions of crop declaration: Farms can grow up to 10 times, young people do not go to the countryside

 

 

 In the European Union, taxes are introduced for carbon dioxide. It's getting more and more expensive to burn diesel fuel and apply fossil fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides. Large farms based on these resources are a temporary thing. Not worth it. You will quit and leave yourself. You will leave your fields destroyed by erosion and turned into a wasteland. If you destroy even smaller farms, you won't even get support in the state for the transition period. There is only a handful of you. Who will go or drive to the demonstrations to support you? So would you shut up instead of spreading nonsense that is harmful to you:

 

     "The beginning of the declaration of agricultural crops will, it seems, highlight the problems of our agricultural sector even more - small farms are rapidly disappearing, the average age of farmers who own such farms is quite high, and young people are very slow to engage in this business.

 

     The trends have already shown in 2022 crop declaration, the data of which is being analyzed. According to them, 8.5 percent farmers own about 70 percent of the land and the expansion does not stop. 

 

We talked about this and what the forecast is on the topic of the Delfi program with the Deputy Minister of Agriculture Paulius Astrauskas.

 

     Although we are talking about medium-sized and family farms, small innovative farms, in reality, the further away the land development is, the more concentrated the land is in one hand.

 

     "If we look at our ministry's report, which is deeper than before, we see how farmers are divided by size and age. Especially since the problems are increasing. For example, the milk crisis is not over yet, and we can see that there may be problems in crop production in the future as well," the vice-minister explains.

 

     Over 500 hectares are managed by 229 farms. However, according to P. Astrauskas, it is not the number of farms, but their size that determines how much land the farms manage and receive payments. 970 legal entities declare 13.7 percent land and the areas under their control are increasing little by little every year.

 

     Another cut is farms up to 100 hectares and farms over 100 hectares. An interesting picture was revealed that in the first category 112 thousand farmers, and in the second 6 thousand farmers who manage more than 100 ha. By area, 5 percent of applicants declare 56% of land.

 

      "I tried to lower the bar even further and took an even lower limit - above 50 ha. We see that 8.5 percent of farmers declare more than 70 percent of all goods. These numbers must be named. The average total size of the farm is 24 hectares," explains the deputy minister.

 

     P. Astrauskas names industrial farms that manage over 500 ha and 529 of them. This is not a lot, but they manage 56 percent. of all goods. It is not owned land, but declared. It can be owned, rented, state owned.

 

     Small farms are disappearing not only because they are losing land. One of the fundamental problems is demographics - age. More than 28,000 women and 25,000 men over the age of 65 manage farms. This means that they will retire from this activity quite quickly. However, youth involvement in the agricultural sector is low. There are only 6 thousand farmers under the age of 29.

 

     "If we take the whole scale, it's really low engagement of young people." There is no change. A healthy pyramid is when the lower part of the pyramid - youth - is larger than older people. Now it is reversed and this leads to farmers leaving and future problems. In the Strategic Plan, the Ministry of Agriculture provided for the promotion of young farmers and medium and family farms. This plan was implemented only this year", explains P. Astrauskas.

 

     The vice minister says that the forecasts are ungrateful. Until 2031, although the Strategic Plan provides for promotion measures, it will not be possible to change the sector itself. The number of farmers will not suddenly start increasing. All over the world, farms are becoming larger and more professional. Lithuania is no exception. The measures in place are designed to slow down this trend.

 

     "A distinction must be made between those who go into mass production, such as cereal crops, and those who raise rarer animals or engage in horticulture. When it comes to crops, 100-250 hectares can make a living and support a family and invest to stay competitive in the market. Unfortunately, getting bigger in this sector can be up to 10 times", says P. Astrauskas.

 

     Farmers themselves see these changes and far from all of them suggest rushing to save economically unviable farms.

 

     "In Lithuania, both our association and others propose to separate the farms of farmers who produce products and are VAT payers and simply the owners of the property, who can also claim direct payments. Taking Lithuanian statistics, out of 130 thousand declaring, about 100 thousand have an area of up to 20 ha and most of them are not real farmers. Only about 1,000 of them are gardeners or vegetable growers. Other semi-subsistence farms, which keep one cow each, declare meadows and drink the milk themselves. They will still have to leave. However, it is possible to organize the register and we would see what the real situation is in agriculture", adds Saulius Daniulis, head of the Association of Lithuanian Organic Farms, a farmer himself.    

 

     He says he is trying to provide another significant offering - the farm does not have to be divided, as is the case in most Scandinavian countries. It can only be inherited or sold as a whole. In our country, when their parents die, children often divide farms into pieces of several hectares. In Denmark, for example, if there is a father's farm and 10 children inherit it, one of them takes out a loan and buys the property and divides the money instead of the land.

 

     "When we separate the property owners and real farmers, we will see completely different statistics and created value in commercial farms in Lithuania. But no one wants to see these numbers and admit that the value created per hectare is enormous. Now that the statistics are common, it is easy to declare that agriculture is suffering because the average is calculated with those who simply declare grassland. The interesting thing is that the profitability of these small businesses is enormous, because they receive income, but have no expenses and distort the statistics", says S. Daniulis indignantly and admits that globalization is taking place and even corporations are getting bigger willy-nilly. A crop farm that grows wheat and manages 20 hectares cannot survive. Because its owner's working hours are actually 4 days in spring and 4 in autumn, and he wants to live from this activity all year round.

 

     "They want to live on it, get subsidies, suck money for nothing and produce nothing. It's time to end it", S. Daniulis complains and says that there is no need to write off the small ones. A 5-hectare vegetable farm will support the family. However, if you keep three cows in such an area, then do not ask for support. It's just a hobby, like keeping cats or dogs for other people.

 

     "No one forbids having such farms, but you have to understand that you will not make a living from it. It can only be an additional source of income next to another, hired job. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. Such people are not farmers because they do not make a living from it, and we cry that farms are rapidly disappearing. When there were over 200 thousand farms, we just made nonsense - we called three-hectare farmers farmers. When Lithuanian agricultural organizations trumpet that in Germany a person can make a living from a 30-hectare farm, they are not telling the truth. They all have additional jobs and a German, a Dutchman, or a Swede cannot make a living from such an area," S. Daniulis teaches."