FARM CONSOLIDATION HAS RESULTED IN A SIGNIFICANT FALL IN FARM MANAGER NUMBERS IN EUROPE SINCE 2007, WITH THE BIGGEST DECLINE AMONG THE YOUNGEST AGE GROUPS
Number of farms managed by age group, 2007-2016
Change 07-16 [%]
-23%
15,000,000
12,500,000
-33% -38% -20% -24%
Less than 25 Years From 25 to 34 years From 35 to 44 years From 45 to 54 years
10,000,000
7,500,000
5,000,000
From 55 to 64 years
-16%
2,500,000
65 years or over
-24%
0
2007
2010
2013
2016
Figure 30: Number of farm managers in Europe by age group, from 2007 to 2016 Source: Eurostat, Roland Berger
Due to expensive wages and strong opportunities for workers in other sectors of the economy, Western European countries have a difficult time finding adequate local labor for specialty crop harvesting. As a result, these countries rely on large numbers of seasonal workers for the annual harvest, often from Eastern Europe (predominantly Romania) and Northern Africa. Italy is the largest importer of seasonal agricultural labor, taking in 375,000 workers
each year (19.5 percent of the total legal agricultural workforce). Germany (300,000 workers, 8.1 percent of the legal agricultural workforce), France (276,000, 4.6 percent) and Spain (150,000, 22 percent) also import a large part of their agricultural workforce. 65 The U.S. has seen a similar trend toward imported labor. The country saw its share of domestic farm labor decrease from 42 to 28 percent in between 1991 and 2016, demonstrating that in both the U.S. and much of Europe, domestic
65 Migrant seasonal workers in the European agricultural sector | European Parliament, 2021
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