Brief facts about Czech Agriculture

Agriculture comprises agricultural production itself, the food industry and forest and water management. It is an important part of the national economy and it is also of great significance for the life of every nation.

The czech agriculture has always endeavoured towards the optimum utilization of the positively verified knowledge and experiences of the most distinguished market economies, and put in use all the progressive developments that have been the source of prosperity in the past. All this has paved the way for the fame of Czech agriculture abroad.

Document presenting all the essential data about the state of Czech agriculture and food industry in 2004 Publisher by Czech Ministry of Agriculture 22.06.2006

The objective of the current conception of the national agrarian policy is to support the "European Model of Agriculture", with the emphasis on the development of multifunctional agriculture. It focuses on both the agriculture production, provision of services of maintenance and formation of landscape as well as on other environmental services and non-agricultural activities. A deeper interconnection of agriculture with the renewal and development of the countryside is of ever increasing importance.

The total agricultural area of the Czech Republic is 4.3 million hectares, of which 3.1 million hectares is arable land. About a half of the total agricultural area is located on less favourable land, and about an eighth is located in conservation areas (protected water resources, landscapes and nature).

Agricultural production makes up to 5% of the gross domestic product while the processing industry accounts for 7%. The Czech agriculture is concentrated on traditional crops of the temperate zone. Cereals (mainly wheat and barley) predominate.

Animal production is focused primarily on rising cattle for milk and meat production and on pig and poultry breeding.

The economic transformation after 1989 gave rise to changes in the land tenure. At the end of 2000, about 85 percent of the total area was privately owned and further privatisation of the state land is under way. Today, 98% of farmland is privately managed. During the transformation process, new forms of ownership have emerged from the former co-operatives and state farms. Farmland is now distributed as follows: corporate farms - 40%; co-operatives - 34%; individual private farms - 24%; and state enterprises - 2% of the agricultural area.

From 1989 to 2002, employment in agriculture dropped to 31% of the initial amount. At the end of 2002, 180,000 persons were employed in this sector.

Please see web page of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic or download Summary report 2003 (3,02MB)

Since 1989, the whole sector of agriculture has undergone a difficult path of transformation from large-scale, centrally planned agricultural production and permanently unsaturated foreign markets, particularly in the countries of the former socialist bloc, to agricultural production which has succeeded in coping with the revolutionary liberalization of prices, together with the progressive liberalization of foreign trade, changes in the tax system, and last but not least, with the privatization of agricultural possessions which has taken place at the highest speed and to the largest extent within the framework of the whole national economy.

Privatization has resulted in a change in the entrepreneurial structure of agriculture and in a reduction of the average area of a farm from almost 1 000 hectares to 100 hectares. On one hand, the reduction of the average area of agricultural farms has resulted in a partially decreased comparative advantage of compact large farms but on the other, the possibility has increased for developing a multifunctional agriculture which is one of the prerequisites of the development of the countryside. In dependence upon massive reduction of staff by two thirds of the original number and on the better utilization of more advanced technologies and mechanization, the productivity of labor has also dramatically increased. At present, the agricultural sector employs 3.4% of the economically active population and its share in gross domestic product is 1.5%. These figures are fully comparable with all industrialized countries.

Dramatic changes in the structure of production will probably no longer take place in productive areas. On the other hand, in mountain and sub-mountain areas, the development of extensive forms of farming will necessarily go on with emphasis placed on maintaining the landscape and on agro-tourism. In the conception of support, the trend is prevailing towards subsiding multifunctional agriculture.