6.4 million EU farms could vanish by 2040 as young people can’t afford to start

The average EU farmer is 57 years old. Only 12% of farms are managed by someone under 40. Between 2010 and 2020, 3 million farms disappeared from the EU, and if the trend continues, a European Parliament study estimates the bloc could lose another 6.4 million by 2040.

The EU says it wants generational renewal. The Common Agricultural Policy allocates dedicated funding for young farmers. The European Commission published a Strategy for Generational Renewal in Agriculture in 2025. And yet the share of young farmers keeps falling. The reason is straightforward: the barriers to entering farming are structural, financial, and physical, and policy has not kept pace with any of them.

Young farmers who make it in are exactly what the EU says it needs

The small number of young people who do enter farming tend to be better prepared than their older counterparts. According to a 2025 European Commission analytical brief on young farmers in EU agriculture, 20% of farmers under 40 have received full agricultural training, compared with significantly lower rates among older managers. They operate larger farms, both in physical area and economic output. They are more inclined towards organic farming. And in most EU member states, young farmers who run commercial operations actually earn higher incomes per worker than farmers aged 40 to 64.

These are exactly the kind of producers the EU's Vision for Agriculture and Food calls for: educated, productive, sustainability-minded. The problem is that the system makes it extremely difficult for them to get started.

Land is the first barrier

Farmers under 40 manage 18% of the EU's total utilized agricultural area (27.3 million hectares), but own only 37% of the land they work. Older farmers own 50%. At the holdings level, 79% of young farmers' operations include some owned land, compared with 91% for older farmers.

This disparity matters because land is both the primary productive asset in agriculture and the primary form of collateral that banks accept for farm loans. Young farmers who cannot buy land find it harder to secure credit, invest, and build long-term operations. Meanwhile, land prices across much of the EU continue to rise, driven partly by consolidation: the 3.6% of EU farms that are 100 hectares or larger already control 52.5% of all agricultural land.

In countries like Greece, Portugal, and Spain, where new farm managers tend to be older (more than 70% are already over 40 when they take over), the typical path is inheritance, not market entry. Young people without family land face a market that was not designed for them.

Banks reject young farmers at high rates

The financing gap for young farmers in the EU reached €14.2 billion in 2022, according to the European Investment Bank's fi-compass assessment. That figure was 12% higher than in 2017, and it covers only bank finance, excluding other sources of capital.

Banks' rejection rates tell the story behind the number. In the cereals, oilseeds, and protein crops sector, 14% of loan applications from young farmers were rejected. The most common reasons were existing debt, insufficient collateral (often linked to the land access problem), lack of accounting records, and banking policies that limit exposure to agricultural lending. In vegetable production, competitive pressure and market volatility added to the risk assessment. For young dairy farmers, the banks' own unwillingness to lend dominated.

These are not marginal cases. Cereals and oilseeds are among the EU's largest crop sectors. When young farmers cannot access credit for mainstream crops, the financing barrier affects the sector's core productive capacity.

The working conditions make recruitment harder

Even when young people are willing to farm and can access land and financing, the working conditions of the sector itself serve as a deterrent. Eurostat data for 2024 shows that EU agricultural workers put in 40.6 hours per week, compared with 35.5 for the economy as a whole. One in five (22%) worked 49 hours or more per week, more than three times the economy-wide rate of 6.5%.

The safety record is worse. In 2022, the EU agricultural sector recorded 4.2 fatal accidents per 100,000 workers, 2.5 times the economy-wide average of 1.7. Physical hazards, machinery, chemical exposure, long hours, and isolation all contribute.

And the employment structure offers few protections. 53.7% of the agricultural workforce is self-employed, nearly four times the 13.7% economy-wide average. Another 9.4% are unpaid family workers, compared with 0.6% across all sectors. That means nearly two-thirds of people working in agriculture have no employer-provided benefits: no guaranteed minimum wage, no paid sick leave, no employer pension contributions.

For a generation with many alternatives to choose from, this combination of long hours, high risk, limited protections, and below-average pay is difficult to accept. At the EU level, young farmers on commercial operations earn 28% less than the average wage in the broader economy.

The income picture is more complicated than it looks

The EU-level income statistics for young farmers are heavily skewed by Poland and Romania, which together account for 44% of the young farmers in the EU's farm accounting survey (FADN). Income per worker in these two countries is well below the EU average: 51% for Poland and 40% for Romania.

In most other member states, young farmers actually earn more per worker than older farmers. The viability of commercial farms run by young farmers is comparable to that of those run by farmers aged 40 to 64. And young farmers receive 4% more in direct payments per hectare than older farmers, reflecting CAP provisions for generational renewal.

The problem, then, is less about farming being unprofitable once you are established. It is about surviving the entry phase: acquiring land, securing credit, building up the operation, and enduring below-average income for the first years while carrying higher debt loads and fewer assets than established operators.

Policy support exists, but has not reversed the trend

The CAP 2023-2027 budget of €269.5 billion includes provisions specifically targeting young farmers. In 2020, 55% of young farmers in the EU benefited from rural development support, compared with 36% of older farmers. The most used measure was support linked to natural constraints, followed by farm and business development. Only 8% of young farmers used the dedicated support for setting up new farms.

The European Commission's proposal for the CAP 2028-2034 and its Strategy for Generational Renewal aim to go further, with measures to reduce entry barriers, encourage intergenerational succession, and facilitate investment. Whether these measures will be sufficient depends on whether they address the root causes: land market concentration, banks' reluctance to lend to agriculture, and working conditions that compare unfavourably with virtually every other sector.

What young farmers actually need

The data from both Eurostat and the European Commission's young farmers brief point to three specific gaps that policy and market solutions would need to close.

First, land access. Young farmers need pathways to acquire or lease land at viable rates. Cooperatives, land banks, and public land leasing schemes can provide alternatives to the open market, where established operators and investors have structural advantages.

Second, credit. The €14.2 billion financing gap will not close solely through bank lending alone, given the sector's risk profile. Guarantee schemes, blended finance instruments, and EU-backed lending facilities specifically designed for young entrants could reduce the barrier. Some member states already operate such programmes, but coverage varies widely.

Third, market access. Young farmers who can sell directly to buyers rather than through intermediaries retain more of the value their work creates. Platforms that provide real-time market price data and direct buyer connections help reduce the information and access disadvantage that new entrants face compared with established operations.

The EU agricultural sector lost a quarter of its farms in a single decade. A third of current farm managers are past 65. And the young people who are best equipped to replace them face financial, structural, and physical barriers at every stage of entry. The Eurostat and Commission data lay out the problem with precision. Closing the gap requires solutions that match that precision, targeted at the specific points where young farmers are blocked.