Enterprise groups and part-time work characterise agriculture in Estonia

According to Eve Valdvee, leading analyst at Statistics Estonia and project manager of the Agricultural Census, a significant share of agricultural production in Estonia takes place in large enterprises. “In addition, agricultural holdings include 314 enterprises that belong to enterprise groups. Group enterprises account for around a third of agricultural production in Estonia,” said Valdvee.

The number of enterprise groups is not big but they hold 18% of the utilised agricultural land in Estonia and account for 33% of bovine animals, 62% of pigs and 82% of poultry. Most enterprise groups are Estonian-controlled but there are also foreign-controlled groups. The latter account for 10% of production, 3% of the utilised agricultural area, 7% of bovine animals, 35% of pig farming and 82% of poultry farming.

Part-time work is common in agriculture. The share of full-time workers among the 11,400 agricultural holdings in Estonia was just 37%. Managers work full-time more frequently in the holdings of legal persons, where 32% of them worked full-time. In the holdings of natural persons, less than 20% of managers worked full-time.

There are 3,700 legal person and 7,700 natural person agricultural holdings in Estonia. Of the natural person holdings, 12% have other holding-related gainful activities, most often forestry, tourism, contract work* and processing of raw timber. The less common secondary activities are, for example, fish farming and renewable energy production. The share of non-agricultural activities is usually less than a tenth, while for 16% of holdings, agriculture is a secondary activity.

Read more about the Agricultural Census. 

Agricultural Census was co-financed by the European Commission.

 * Non-agricultural contract work as well as agricultural contract work for other holdings.

More detailed data have been published in the statistical database.

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