Deliverable 2.1 - Report: Estimated Spatial Distribution and Key Characteristics of Small Farms in Europe

It is clear that any definition of a small farm needs to be based on national and regional realities. Definitions involving only the criterion of farm size have universal appeal as they are relatively easy to apply and allow simple comparisons across countries and world regions. However, they don't capture all the complexities of farming. Definitions involving additional criteria to farm size are more meaningful, particularly those including indicators of the farm economic output, but data availability is often a limitation (Ruane, 2016). At the same time there is an increasing need to better understand the relative importance and role of small farms in different regional contexts in order to support the design of public interventions. This is crucial for many regions in Europe, where changes in the farm sector are occurring at exceptionally strong pace.

The main objective of this deliverable is to describe the analytical process which enabled the development of a European map of the distribution of small farms at the NUTS-3 level. This process considered different dimensions of farm size through the combination of different datasets with information obtained from key experts. These experts were identified based on the territorial, social and economic expertise needed. A cluster analysis has been performed at NUTS-3 level using the available statistical data on farm size. The distribution of the number of holdings and of the utilized agricultural area (UAA) by farm size classes is presented, as well as a map with the distribution of different clusters that represent different structural patterns of the distribution of small farms.