Greece’s agricultural sector is suffering
The low level of modernization and the small size of farms result in low productivity
Greece’s agricultural population is aging. The country’s farmers have a low level of training and are largely stuck in the practices and reasonings of the past, characteristics that, in combination with others, affect the productivity and competitiveness of Greece’s domestic primary production sector. At the same time, the level of collective organization into producer groups and cooperatives remains extremely low, not so much in terms of quantity but mainly in terms of quality, with farmers still at the mercy of other links in the supply chain, from input suppliers to retailers, as their bargaining power remains very low.
According to the latest update of the National Register of Agricultural Cooperatives in 2023, there are 1,056 collective entities listed – perhaps more than any other European Union member-state – but they are estimated to produce the lowest value per cooperative. Not to mention their outstanding debts, which amounted to around 2.5 billion euros a few years ago. For example, according to the latest data available from Eurostat (referring to the year 2020), only 0.7% of farm owners in Greece had a full agricultural education – in the sense that after compulsory schooling they attended a training program of at least two years and studied a subject related to the primary sector at a higher level. This is the lowest percentage in the EU, with Greece coming at a par with Romania.
It is fair to say that today’s farmers are much better educated and trained than they were in the mid-1990s and shortly thereafter, a time of great rural mobilizations.
Even where there is a working farm, there is no secure succession because of the reluctance of young people to engage in agriculture
Indeed, compared to 2010, the percentage of fully trained farm managers has almost doubled (it was only 0.32%), but it is still desperately low. At the EU level, it is also very low, only one in 10, but there are EU member-countries where the corresponding percentages are very high, such as the Netherlands (62.8%) and France (38.4%). In other Mediterranean countries, the percentage is low, but several times higher than in Greece (6.78% in Italy, 4.08% in Spain). In Greece, 72.30% of farm managers have only practical experience, which is undoubtedly useful but not sufficient for the practice of agriculture as it is currently evolving.
This, of course, is also related to the fact that the vast majority of owners and heads of agricultural holdings in Greece are older. Almost four out of 10 are aged 65 or over, while the so-called young farmers (under 40 years old) represent only 7.2% of the heads of farms. This alarming figure is, of course, also related to the inadequacy of health, education and other infrastructure in the Greek countryside, an inadequacy that in fact drives young people away from their villages. In other words, even where there is a working farm, there is no secure succession because of the reluctance of young people to engage in agriculture.
Given that Greece has the highest percentage of family farms in the European Union (98%), the above two elements determine not only the form but also the prospects for the sustainability and development of the domestic agricultural sector. Although non-family farms represent only 2% of all farms in Greece, they are more than twice as large as family farms: Their average size is 120 hectares, while that of family farms is 50 hectares. Also, the average value of non-family farms in 2020 was 141,157 euros, while the average value of family farms was only 13,548 euros. It is worth noting that almost three out of four farms in Greece are very small, less than 50 hectares, while the average farm size in the EU is 170 hectares.
The low level of modernization and the small size of farms result in the low productivity of the domestic agricultural sector, which decreased even further in 2023, by 5.37 percentage points, with Greece ranking 13th among the 27.
Several of the above shortcomings and inefficiencies could have been addressed if Greek farmers were organized into collective entities – cooperatives and producer groups – that function primarily as businesses rather than as vote-generating mechanisms. In this way, they would be able to procure the necessary inputs for their members at more advantageous prices, and then by having their own packing plants and warehouses they could have value-added products and make direct sales to retailers in Greece and abroad.
Last but not least, Greece has, among other things, an important resource, which is none other than the approximately 250 products of Protected Agricultural Indication and Protected Designation of Origin (PGI and PDO). Although exports are quite significant – 42% of sales are made outside Greece – their value represents 1.5% of the European value, down from 1.9% in 2010, mainly because other member-states have developed more of their own PGI and PDO products.
