Fewer farms, larger pieces of land, aged farming community – Agrárium 2026 data collection ended, preliminary data available, 02/09/2026

Agricultural production is carried out on a smaller number of but larger farms in Hungary. The number of farms has dropped by 41% over ten years, and the average agricultural area per farm increased by 18% between 2023 and 2026. The age structure of farm managers hardly changed, however, in the past years, 37% already reached the retirement age of 65 years, and the proportion of those under 40 years of age was merely 10% – as it turned out from preliminary data from the Agrárium 2026 data collection by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office.

According to preliminary data from the Agrárium 2026 data collection, 163 thousand farms performed agricultural activities in Hungary on 1 June 2026. It was 35 thousand fewer compared to 2023. The number of farms has fallen by a total of 41% in the last 10 years. In parallel, however, it is notable that a growing number of farms perform crop production and animal keeping activities at the same time: the number of mixed holdings has increased by 28% since 2023. All this indicates that farms performing many kinds of activities have an increasing role. The rise in concentration is shown as well by the average agricultural area per farm being up by 18% between 2023 and 2026 – approximating with this 33 hectares.

The increase in concentration is especially spectacular in animal keeping: the livestock expressed in livestock units grew by 19% compared to 2023, while 83% of the total livestock are already kept on farms with more than 100 livestock units. This proportion was 73% as far back as 2013. In parallel, the number of farms keeping 5 animals or fewer significantly fell: it was down from 179 thousand in 2013 to 41 thousand.

In parallel with the re-structuring of farms, however, the age structure of the farming community did not change substantially in the past three years. 37% of farms are managed by 65-year-old or older managers, while the proportion of those under 40 years of age was invariably merely 10%. Thus, the replacement of the farming community continues to be one of the determining challenges for agriculture according to the data.

A favourable trend can be observed, however, in the area of qualifications. The proportion of people with full agricultural training rose above 12%, while the proportion of those having no agricultural qualifications decreased to 48%. The role of females is also significant: the manager of one in three farms is a female – which is incidentally identical with the EU proportion.

You can learn about farms, operating behind statistical data, and the every-day work there through a video, too, presenting the life of a family farm.

Further detailed information can be found at this link.

Background: The Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) carried out an integrated farm statistics data collection between 15 May and 15 July 2026 under the name Agrárium 2026, in 969 settlements in Hungary. The fully electronic data collection covered about 47 thousand private farms, 14 thousand agricultural enterprises and some 4.5 thousand key private farms. You can read more about Agrárium 2026 on this page.

Hungarian Central Statistical Office
H-1024 Budapest, Keleti Károly utca 5–7. Phone number: (+36-1) 345-6000
Postal address: H-1525 Budapest, P.O.Box 51
www.ksh.hu