Changes of agricultural producers in Estonia according to the size of land use
Estonian University of Life Sciences, Institute of Forestry and Rural Engineering, Chair of Geomatics, Kreutzwaldi 5, EE51006, Tartu, Estonia
*Correspondence: marii.rasva@emu.ee
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the changes in Estonian agricultural producers according to the size of the land use. To present the situation in Estonian agriculture, and its recent changes, Estonian Agricultural Registers and Information Board (ARIB) data from 2011 and 2016 is used. This data shows that agricultural land use area per producer has gone up in Estonia and most of the agricultural land is used by agricultural producers in size groups 400–< 1,000 ha and > 1,000 ha. This means that there is a situation in Estonia, where small number of agrucultural producers are using large area of agricultural land. For excample, the largest agricultural producer was using 27% of agricultural land located in Türi municipality in 2016. As the outcome of the study shows that in Estonia, there is the trend of farm size growth and there is a need to find out if this model of agricultural production guarantees us food and future of sustainability.
Key words:
agricultural producer, Estonia, land use, sustainable agriculture