The Dutch Agri-Food Sector

Although it covers a mere 0.008% of the global land surface, the Netherlands comes second after the US as a leading net exporter of farm products. The agri-food sector provides a gross value added of approximately 72,000 million Dutch Guilders, equal to around 10% of the Dutch GDP. The economic and social dimensions of the Dutch agri-food sector can be easily grasped by a brief review of the following aspects:

Businesses in the sector
In 1999, there were over 5000 businesses in the food, drinks and tobacco sector, i.e. almost 11% of the total industry in the Netherlands. Mergers and business concentrations are causing a gradual annual decline of 2% in the number of businesses. On the other hand, the number of wholesale businesses dealing in agricultural products has risen by 13% since 1983. With 11,260 businesses, agricultural wholesale accounts for over 20% of the total wholesale sector.

The number of businesses in the primary sector is declining annually by 2-3%; whereas there were still 124,000 businesses in 1990, there are at present only about 100,000, approximately 90,000 of which are predominantly active in agriculture.

Dutch livestock herd
In 1999, the Dutch livestock herd numbered: 4,206,000 cattle, 13,567,000 pigs,
1,401,000 sheep, 153,000 goats, 104,767,000 chickens, 1,438,000 turkeys.

Employment
In 1998, 292,000 people worked in agriculture, 85,000 of these were not family members. The majority (77%) of non-family personnel works in horticultural businesses. The ratio of women is rising. At present, 34% (100,000) of the workers are women, compared to 31% five years ago.

On almost half of the farms, one of the partners now works part of the time elsewhere; since 1980, external income has risen from 15% to 25%, 10% of which comes from non-farm labour income.

The contribution of primary agriculture to the national income and employment is 3% and 3.6% respectively.

Export
Around 75% of the agricultural production is exported, this amounting to 87,000 million Dutch Guilders. Eighty percent goes to the 370 million consumers of the EU market.

Agri-Tourism
Over 2000 agricultural businesses offer agri-tourism. The agri-sector accounts for approximately 20,000 jobs in the tourism industry and contributes to the image of the Netherlands as a destination for holidays and recreation.

Additional statistical information can be found in 'Statistics' web-page of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries .

Use of Land
The total surface area of the Netherlands is 4.15 million hectares: 3.39 million hectares of land (82%) and 0.7 million hectares of water (18%). Sixty percent of the total (land and water) is used by agriculture.

In terms of land use alone (3.39 million hectares) 68% is used for agriculture (2.30 million hectares) and 32% (1.09 million hectares) is used for forestry, nature and buildings.

The total area covered by crop farming (excluding silage maize) is 571,475 hectares. The total area covered by pastures and silage maize is 1,248,759 hectares. Horticulture accounts for 119,741 hectares.