Europe is an important region for the global agricultural industry, both in terms of agricultural land and agricultural production. EU farms used 173 million hectares (ha) of land for agricultural production in 2016.
According to the national accounts around 10 million people worked in agriculture in the EU-28 in 2015 and accounted for 4.4 % of total employment. Almost three-quarters (72.8 %) of the agricultural workforce in the EU-28 was concentrated in seven countries: Romania, Poland, Italy, France, Spain, Bulgaria, and Germany.
Employment in agriculture constituted more than 10 % of total employment in four Member States: Romania (25.8 %), Bulgaria (18.2 %), Greece (11.0 %), and Poland (11.0 %). Very low shares — below 2 % — were reported in Germany (1.4 %), Sweden (1.3 %), Belgium (1.2 %), Malta (1.2 %), the United Kingdom (1.1 %) and Luxembourg (0.8 %). The Farm Structure Survey (FSS) provides a wide range of information on agricultural holdings, including detailed data on farm labor force characteristics. The FSS is carried out in the form of an agricultural census every 10 years and as a sample survey every 3 years.
