There is one thing they agree about, the Dutch farmers and politicians, civil servants and advisers, who will travel shortly to the UN-climate summit in Kopenhagen. There is a serious crisis in agriculture. But the story behind this rather differs according to the Dutch newspaper Financieel Dagblad. As far as agriculture may have a worldwide problem, it is more a threatened shortage of farmers. A large agricultural nation like France has a serious problem with the ageing population in the countryside. People move into town and hardly anybody wants to become a farmer.

Similar problems occur in Eastern European countries, such as Russia, Poland, Romania and Ukraine, where large areas of agricultural farmland lie fallow because of a shortage of farmers. Even China has the problem of the population moving into towns and cities.

50 farms less per week

In Holland the number of agricultural companies decreased by 44% to just over 75,000 during the period from 1985 to 2008. This is a decrease during a 23 year period of just over 50 per week. Up to now this has been absorbed by increase in size, but this will stop sooner or later. The remaining companies are becoming more and more worried about succession.

This will rectify itself automatically when prices are increasing structurally and the agrarian business becomes more attractive. That will most definitely happen. But do not confuse this with the worldwide foodcrisis, because that is still far away.