Statistics Portugal releases the results of the Farm Structure Survey 2023, making the updated database indicators available on this website.

In 2023, 261.5 thousand holdings (-9.9% compared to 2019) and 3.861 million hectares of UAA (-2.6% vis-à-vis to 2019) were recorded, highlighting, amongst the main results: 

• The acceleration of the trend towards reducing the number of farms since 2019, particularly small ones, widespread across all NUTSII;

• The increase in the average size of farms to 14.8 hectares of UAA per farm (13.7 hectares in 2019) and the average economic size to 31.4 thousand euros of SO per farm (23.3 thousand euros of SO in 2019);

• The maintenance of the importance of specialization (3/4 of the total holdings);

• The increase in employed labour force, which compensated for the decrease in family labour and interrupted the trend of decreasing the volume of agricultural labour recorded since 1989;

• The importance of agricultural enterprises in the productive structure, which is much greater than their weight (6% of the total);

• The differences between the managers of agricultural enterprises, who are on average 54 years old and have good qualifications, and sole holders, whose average age is 65 years old and whose agricultural training is mainly practical;

• In land use, the increase in the area of permanent crops, which surpassed arable land for the first time;

• In irrigation, the use of 3 billion m3 of water to irrigate 581.4 thousand hectares on the Mainland;

• The decrease in the number of farms and herbivore herds, due to the unfavorable situation;

• The major increase in farms and areas certified in organic production, which more than tripled in 4 years;

• The increased importance of soil management practices, namely reduced tillage and maintenance of soil cover on agricultural land.