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Austria The Structure of Agriculture
Despite the government's efforts to sustain agriculture, by
1991 not one province had as much as 10 percent of the population
involved in agriculture and forestry. At the beginning of the
1970s, all but two provinces (Vienna and Vorarlberg) had more
than 10 percent of their populations involved in farming. This
contrasted markedly to the situation in 1934, when all but those
same two provinces had more than 30 percent of their populations
working in agriculture. Over this period of two generations, the
decline in the Austrian farm population was as fast as any in the
Western world.
Of Austria's total area of almost 84,000 square kilometers,
about 67,000 square kilometers are used for farming and forestry.
Roughly half of that area is forest, and the remainder is arable
land and pasture.
Agriculture and forestry accounted for about 280,000
enterprises in 1986, with the average holding being about twentythree hectares. There were about 4,500 corporate farms. Beyond
those farms, however, only a third of all farmers were full-time
farmers or farming companies. Over half the farming enterprises
were smaller than ten hectares; nearly 40 percent were smaller
than five hectares. Just as the number of farmers has long been
in decline, so also has been the number of farms.
Family labor predominates, especially in mountainous areas
and on smaller farms. Only a third of all farm and forestry
enterprises were classified as full-time occupations in 1986. A
full half of these enterprises are spare-time, that is, less than
half of household labor is devoted to farming or forestry. The
remainder are part-time. Farms up to ten hectares are more often
tended by part-time and spare-time farmers rather than by fulltime farmers. For most farm owners and workers, nonfarm income is
as important, if not more important, than farm income.
Despite the decline in the number of farmers and
agriculture's share of GDP since 1960, agricultural output has
risen. As of the early 1990s, Austria was self-sufficient in all
cereals and milk products as well as in red meat. This gain was
achieved because of the considerable gains in agricultural labor
productivity.
The value of agricultural and forestry output is heavily
concentrated in field crops, meat, and dairy products, with most
of it coming from animal husbandry. Because large parts of
Austria are mountainous, only the lowland areas of eastern
Austria and some smaller flat portions of western and northern
Austria are suitable for crop production and more intensive forms
of animal husbandry. The remainder of the land is used for
forestry and less intensive animal husbandry, most of which takes
advantage of mountain pasturage.
Data as of December 1993
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