Flury&Giuliani GmbH

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Land transfers and development of farm structures until 2007

Economies of scale can significantly improve the competitiveness of the Swiss agricultural sector. In order to understand the development behind the farm size structure, the underlying sub-processes of land transfers are examined in-depth. Each year, between 4 % and 5 % of the total utilised agricultural area are transferred due to the closing down or start-up of farms, intergenerational farm transfers or the growth and shrinkage of farms. While this share is significant, the theoretical potential for a net shift of surfaces towards bigger farms is by no means fully exploited. Only few farms of above-average size are set up, numerous small and middle-sized farms are taken over by the next generations and surfaces which become vacant are concentrated in middle-sized farms. The on-going development of size structure is so slow that it restricts the potential  reduction of production costs which is so important given the challenges to be expected in the future.

Published in: Agrarforschung, Mai 2009