Janusz Wojciechowski, the EU agriculture commissioner, said: “My intention is that this process of disappearing small farms should be stopped. “Exports are important, but we need to pay more attention to our own markets – high-quality goods from European farms to European markets. This will be especially good for small farms.”These reforms may stop some of the haemorrhaging of small farms in the EU, but a return to small farms across the bloc looks increasingly unlikely. The Guardian’s data analysis gives a glimpse of what has been far more than an economic transformation among small farms. Among longstanding EU member states, the decline in the number of small farms has been going on for decades.

Source: The Guardian May 24, 2021 04:52 UTC