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2.1.3  Trends in agricultural production and land use

It is commonly agreed that current production levels are the result of a long-term post-war policy paradigm based on increasing agricultural productivity, securing food supplies to European nations and increasing the competitiveness of European agriculture on international markets. A combination of structural adjustments and strong market incentives were used across Europe  which led to constant growth in European agricultural production until the 1980s (Martín-Retortillo and Pinilla, 2015).

The significance of the growth in European agricultural production can be represented livestock units on the one hand, and area under production together with yields on the other. Figure 2.2shows that:

• Livestock units in Europe more than doubled between 1960 and 2014 with poultry and pig production showing the highest increases, more than six times and more than twice respectively.
• Cereal production in Europe (EU-28) has tripled, while the area harvested has decreased by about 10%.
• The area under vegetable production has decreased by 44%, while the yield per hectare has more than doubled.

Overall, the increase in livestock production slowed in the 1980s due to macro-economic changes, in particular due to oversupply on the European market and changed incentives from the Common Agricultural Policy, including the introduction of milk quotas in 1984 (Martín-Retortillo and Pinilla, 2015). Livestock production continued however to increase in the Mediterranean countries due to the adoption of intensive livestock breeding processes, while it decreased by more than 50% in eastern Europe between the 1980s and 2000s (Martín-Retortillo and Pinilla, 2015).

In contrast, agricultural land has shown a continuous decrease since the 1950s, due to several factors including rural exodus, abandonment of less economically viable farms and increased productivity on land under cultivation (Martín-Retortillo and Pinilla, 2015). Loss of agricultural land is still ongoing, with a total annual loss of agricultural area was about 80,000 ha/year on average between 2000 and 2018 (EEA, 2019d) . This loss is primarily to the expansion of artificial surfaces.

In addition to the overall decline in area, a large number of internal conversions also has taken place. A loss of 12% in the area of permanent grassland has been observed in EC-9 between 1975 and 1995, equivalent to a loss over 4 million hectares of permanent grassland (Gibon, 2005). The same area of land could have been used for different agricultural activities during that 18-year period.

The loss of agricultural land since the 1950s has been largely compensated by increases in yields, which overall led to a significant increase in arable and permanent crop production (Martín-Retortillo and Pinilla, 2015). Nowadays average yields in Europe are on average 60% more than the global average (Erisman et al., 2011). Recent years have seen a stabilisation of yields, and in some case a decline (Brisson et al., 2010; Grassini et al., 2013).