Romania's agricultural land falls by 1 mln ha

Romania's utilized agricultural area decreased in 2013 by nearly one million hectares compared to 2002. Even so, Romania has the highest number of farms in the European Union, but they are much smaller than the average EU farms, according to a study by Romania's National Institute of Statistics (INS), cited by local Mediafax. Romania holds 13.05 million hectares, which represent 7.6% of the used agricultural area in the European Union. Other countries surpass Romania:France, with 27.8 million hectares (16%), Spain, with 23.75 million hectares (13.6%), United Kingdom, with 16.8 million hectares (9.7%), Germany, with 16.7 million hectares (9.6%) and Poland, with 14.4 million hectares (8.3%). Romania has 3.63 million farms, namely one-third of the total number of farms in the EU. The number went down by 6% on 2010. A Romanian farm's average size is 3.6 hectares, four times lower than the EU average, which is 14.2 hectares. editor@romania-insider.com