FARMS IN BULGARIA GET FEWER BUT BIGGER - REPORT

Owners of agricultural land make up 97.98 per cent of the total number of farms, cultivating 33.22 per cent of the land

The government Tuesday adopted a report on the conclusion of the 2010 farm census and its main findings, the government information service said. The report carries a comparative analysis of the data obtained in the two farm censuses of 2003 and 2010.

In 2010, there were 370,222 farms in Bulgaria, or 44 per cent down from 2003. However, farming land in use grew 25 per cent from the previous census to 3.62 million hectare, more than doubling the average farm area from 4.44 ha in 2003 to 10.13 ha in 2010.

Southern Bulgaria reports a larger number of farms (with Blagoevgrad, Plovdiv, Kurdjali regions at the top), but they have smaller area.

The number of farms in Northern and Northeastern Bulgaria (Varna, Dobrich, Shoumen) is three times fewer, but the average farming area is larger. The Sofia City and Gabrovo regions have the fewest number of farms.

Owners of agricultural land make up 97.98 per cent of the total number of farms, cultivating 33.22 per cent of the land. Companies make up 1.06 per cent of farms, using 31.83 per cent of the area. Cooperatives account for 0.26 per cent of farms and 7.79 per cent of the farming area. Sole traders are 0.61 per cent of farms with 15.05 per cent of the area. Some 3.6 per cent of farms which raise livestock, poultry and bees do not own farming land.

Some 250,733 farms have agricultural land. Traditionally, land under cereal crops makes up for the largest share with 1,796,229 ha (57.5 per cent), followed by technical crops (34.5 per cent).

Forage crops account for 6.8 per cent of the total farming land. Some 1.2 per cent of the land is taken up by vegetable crops. The census figures will be used to set forth the framework of the Rural Development Programme during the new programme period after 2013, fix the monitoring scope of the agricultural accounting information system and to set up a statistical farms register.