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The Agricultural Sector in Greece: Challenges and Policy Directions

Greece’s agricultural sector remains economically and socially vital, but low productivity, fragmented holdings, demographic aging, weak training, underinvestment, rising costs, and climate pressure demand an integrated national strategy.

Ο Αγροτικός Τομέας στην Ελλάδα
diaNEOsis · By Fai Makantasi and Ilias Valentis · 25 April 2026 · read the original in Greek →

Read also: Agricultural Policy in Greeceδιαβάστε ακόμα Αγροτική Πολιτική στην Ελλάδα

Ο Αγροτικός Τομέας (ΑΤ) στην Ελλάδα βρίσκεται σήμερα σε ένα κρίσιμο σημείο. Από τη μία πλευρά, εξακολουθεί να έχει σημαντικό οικονομικό και κοινωνικό αποτύπωμα. Εξασφαλίζει επάρκεια τροφίμων για τη χώρα και συμβάλλει στην απασχόληση, στις εξαγωγές και στην τροφοδοσία μιας σειράς κλάδων, από τη Μεταποίηση έως τον Τουρισμό. Από την άλλη πλευρά, πίσω από αυτή τη διαχρονική σημασία του, σωρεύονται μεγάλες αδυναμίες –άλλες μακροχρόνιες και άλλες συγκυριακές–, οι οποίες περιορίζουν την παραγωγικότητα, καθιστούν τα τοπικά προϊόντα λιγότερο ανταγωνιστικά και βάζουν εμπόδια στη μακροπρόθεσμη προσαρμογή του Τομέα σε μεγάλες προκλήσεις, όπως το Δημογραφικό και η κλιματική αλλαγή.

Greece’s Agricultural Sector (AS) today stands at a critical juncture. On the one hand, it continues to have a significant economic and social footprint. It ensures the country’s food sufficiency and contributes to employment, exports, and the supply of a range of industries, from manufacturing to tourism. On the other hand, behind this enduring importance, major weaknesses have accumulated, some long-standing and others circumstantial, which limit productivity, make local products less competitive, and impede the sector’s long-term adaptation to major challenges such as the demographic question and climate change.

Η νέα ανάλυση της διαΝΕΟσις για τον Αγροτικό Τομέα δημοσιεύεται στη σκιά μιας πυκνής επικαιρότητας – είτε πρόκειται για την υπόθεση ΟΠΕΚΕΠΕ και την ευλογιά των προβάτων είτε για τις επιπτώσεις των πρόσφατων πολέμων στο κόστος παραγωγής. Το κείμενο που υπογράφεται από δύο στελέχη του οργανισμού, τη Διευθύντρια Ερευνών, Φαίη Μακαντάση, και τον Senior Research Analyst, Ηλία Βαλεντή, χαρτογραφεί αναλυτικά τις θεμελιώδεις προκλήσεις του Αγροτικού Τομέα στη χώρα σήμερα. Αναδεικνύει με γλαφυρό τρόπο πώς το μικρό και κατακερματισμένο μέγεθος των εκμεταλλεύσεων, η γήρανση του αγροτικού πληθυσμού, το χαμηλό επίπεδο κατάρτισης, η υστέρηση σε επενδύσεις, η άνοδος του κόστους παραγωγής και οι ολοένα πιο ορατές πιέσεις της κλιματικής αλλαγής συνθέτουν ένα πολύπλοκο και δυναμικό πλέγμα προβλημάτων. Επιπλέον, υπογραμμίζει ότι οι αδυναμίες αυτές δεν λειτουργούν μεμονωμένα, αλλά αλληλεπιδρούν μεταξύ τους και τελικά εγκλωβίζουν τον τομέα σε «χαμηλές πτήσεις».

diaNEOsis’s new analysis of the Agricultural Sector is being published in the shadow of a dense current-affairs landscape, whether the OPEKEPE affair and sheep pox or the effects of recent wars on production costs. The text, signed by two members of the organization’s staff, Research Director Fai Makantasi and Senior Research Analyst Ilias Valentis, maps in detail the fundamental challenges facing the country’s Agricultural Sector today. It vividly shows how the small and fragmented size of holdings, the aging of the farming population, the low level of training, the lag in investment, the rise in production costs, and the increasingly visible pressures of climate change combine to form a complex and dynamic web of problems. It also stresses that these weaknesses do not operate in isolation, but interact with one another and ultimately trap the sector in “low flight.”

At a time when technological progress and climate developments are transforming the AS internationally, understanding these problems and recording them clearly is an essential first step. It is fundamental to the design of the right policies, which will help the Greek AS take advantage of significant European and international opportunities and ultimately realize its potential.

The Agricultural Sector in Greece: Challenges and Policy Directions (.PDF) The Agricultural Sector today

It is certain that the Agricultural Sector contributes significantly to the country’s social and economic life. In 2024, the total value of Greek agricultural production reached almost 15.7 billion euros. In the same year, nearly 450,000 people worked in agricultural production, in terms of annual work units, a share that marginally exceeded 10.5% of total employment in the economy. What does the Greek Agricultural Sector usually produce? Fruit ranks first, with a 32% share in 2024. Animal products come second, at 15%, followed by olive oil (13%) and vegetables and horticultural products (13%).

The country’s AS also directly supports consumption, manufacturing, tourism, and a large part of everyday economic activity. The great majority of the value of AS products, about 85%, is directed toward domestic use: one third of the total value produced concerns households in the country, about one fifth the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Industry, 17% the Agricultural Sector’s own intermediate consumption (for example, animal feed), and 6% tourism and food service.

Yet roughly 15% of the total value of products is exported. Greek agricultural products do indeed show positive momentum in international markets, as exports of goods and services from the Agricultural Sector are rising: in the period 2003-2018, the average annual growth rate reached 2.5%. In 2019-2024, that rate rose to 8.1%. It is also noteworthy that, since 2012, Greek exports of agricultural goods have consistently exceeded the corresponding imports.

The riddle of productivityΟ γρίφος της παραγωγικότητας

Brief Presentation of the Analysis’s Main Points (.PDF)Συνοπτική Παρουσίαση Βασικών Σημείων της Ανάλυσης (.PDF)

Despite the promising picture of exports and its significant scale, the Greek Agricultural Sector appears to display a deeper and especially persistent problem: low productivity. On the one hand, as we saw above, in 2024 the total value of production reached almost 15.7 billion euros in nominal terms, after successive increases since 2021. Yet this picture, taken alone, is rather misleading. If we look at production at constant prices, that is, in real terms, reality is revealed. The value of total agricultural production appears to have been declining in recent years. In 2023 it fell by 6.1%, and in 2024 a further decrease of 1.1% followed. Provisional estimates point to a continued downturn in 2025 as well. Behind the rise in nominal figures, therefore, the sector is in essence shrinking.

The same conclusion also appears to be confirmed by the course of Gross Value Added (GVA). GVA measures the value created by the production process before its distribution into incomes (of producers, workers, taxation, and interest). In 2024, the AS contributed 3.9% of total domestic GVA at current prices, roughly the average of the last fifteen years (3.6%). Nevertheless, when we remove the effect of prices, we see a pronounced and relatively steady decline in real GVA. The picture becomes even more worrying when we look at the long-term trend. From 1995 to 2024, real GVA declined by an average of 1% per year. After 2023, real GVA fell to the lowest level recorded in Greece since 1993. In simple terms, for many years the sector has been becoming less effective at converting labor, land, and the other resources available to it into new value.

Employment data in the Agricultural Sector illuminate another aspect of the same problem. Greece has a much larger share of employment in the AS than the EU, but it does not achieve the expected result in value creation. The relationship between employment and GVA is plainly disproportionate: a share of employment 3.5 times higher than the European average produces only a share of GVA 2.8 times higher, again compared with the European average. In other words, each unit of labor and each unit of land yields less in Greece than in many other countries of the European Union.

This low productivity of labor and land plainly limits the scope for growth. The same weakness entails lower competitiveness for the sector, lower incomes for producers and workers, and, ultimately, affects the Greek economy as a whole. But why have we reached this point? What are the characteristics of the Greek AS that are connected with the problem? diaNEOsis’s analysis singles out six important factors, which are described briefly below.

1. Small and fragmented agricultural holdings1. Μικρές και κατακερματισμένες αγροτικές εκμεταλλεύσεις

The small size of agricultural land is one of the most persistent problems of the Greek Agricultural Sector. Specifically, Greece has the fourth smallest average utilized area per agricultural holding among EU countries, after Malta, Cyprus, and Romania. The problem becomes even more acute if we compare Greece with key competitors in the Agricultural Sector, such as Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and Poland. This picture is also confirmed by a glance at the characteristics of landholdings in the country. In Greece, 45% of agricultural holdings use an area of less than 20 stremmas, and another 28% use areas from 20 to 50 stremmas. Thus more than seven in ten holdings operate on a very limited scale, something that does not help the development of modern production for many agricultural products.

By contrast, large units remain very few. Only 3% of Greek agricultural holdings exceed 300 stremmas, a share less than one third of the European average (11%). Greece, therefore, does not have enough holdings of a size that permits economies of scale.

This weakness is also visible in the way the total active agricultural land is distributed. In Greece, less than 30% of the total utilized agricultural land is found in holdings of more than 300 stremmas. Still lower, units of more than 500 stremmas cover only 16% of the land. In the EU-27, the corresponding shares are many times higher: 77% for holdings of more than 300 stremmas and 68% for holdings of more than 500 stremmas.

Overall in Greece, agricultural land appears to be divided among many small units. By contrast, larger holdings are rare: those with the capacity to make larger investments, operate at lower cost, and use more modern practices in production as well as in marketing, in other words, to create additional value.

2. The advanced age of farmers2. Μεγάλη ηλικία των αγροτών

Longevity and population aging constitute a broader, complex issue, part of what we call the “demographic question.” Yet the reflection of this reality in the Agricultural Sector appears to be especially problematic. The advanced age of farmers affects not only who works in the relevant tasks, but is also connected, certainly not in a uniform way for every individual, with how producers and workers invest, make decisions, understand technological developments, and organize their work.

Seen in this light, the data from ELSTAT are worrying: the number of people up to age 39 employed in the AS was declining steadily until 2020 and reached just over 80,000. Their share of all workers in the sector fell by about 10 points, from 30% in 2008 to 20% in 2020. At the same time, the share of workers over the age of 55 rose from 33% to 38%. The sector appears steadily to be “losing” young people and relying more and more on older age groups.

In the coming years, the country must replace more than 200,000 farmers aged 65 and over.

The same picture is confirmed among the managers of agricultural holdings, who make key decisions, for example about the purchase of equipment. Although the aging of agricultural-holding managers is not an exclusively Greek phenomenon, Greece ranks seventh among EU countries in the share of managers over 65 and third in the corresponding indicator for managers aged 55 and over.

diaNEOsis’s analysis also attempts to describe what prevents younger Greeks from becoming farmers or livestock breeders. In light of the public debate over the OPEKEPE scandal, the text even devotes a section to detailed information on the case, it stresses the need for meritocracy, equality before the law, and transparency, since the relevant problems, beyond their criminal dimensions, are significant disincentives for young professionals. But involvement in the AS, which in any case has an inherent difficulty as a profession, also presents a series of other challenges. On the one hand, it is expensive for someone to enter the profession, especially as a manager, since land, plant or animal capital, and equipment are needed; in other words, one must pay a significant cost or inherit some of the above. In addition, agricultural production is accompanied by great uncertainty: it is affected by weather conditions, natural disasters, and diseases, factors that are largely uncontrollable, while at the same time the country’s agricultural insurance system is notably weak.

Finally, there is a dimension that reveals the urgency of the problem of farmers’ aging. Based on 2023 data, the country must in the coming years replace more than 200,000 farmers aged 65 and over. Within the next decade it will need to replace an additional 150,000 who were then in the 55-to-64 age group. On current evidence, full replacement may not be feasible. But, as the analysis points out, without timely renewal the country risks seeing a reduction in agricultural production and possibly further abandonment of part of the utilized land.

3. A low level of training3. Χαμηλό επίπεδο κατάρτισης

Many indicators show that Greek farmers are among the least educated in the EU. According to ELSTAT data, in 2023 only 0.7% of agricultural-land managers had full agricultural training. Another 4.9% had some basic training in agricultural production. By contrast, 94.4% had no relevant education and relied only on practical experience. The problem is visible not only in the persons themselves, but also in the land they manage. Managers with full agricultural training manage only 1.3% of active Greek agricultural land. Those with even basic training manage 8.9%. Thus 89.8% of the utilized area remains in the hands of managers with no education at all. Comparison with the rest of the EU brings the problem further into relief. In the EU-27, as the following chart also shows, women and men farmers with some kind of training are many times more numerous and, in addition, manage many times larger areas of land.

A coherent strategy of investment in agricultural vocational training, especially for young people, could gradually change the picture. However, the institutions that exist today for such a purpose are not sufficient to bring about significant change. The six Higher Vocational Training Schools (SAEK), which offer a five-semester program with theoretical education and practical training and are managed by ELGO “DIMITRA,” the public organization whose aim is the modernization of the AS, seem, despite their important work, inadequate to cover this great need.

4. Lagging investment4. Υστέρηση σε επενδύσεις

The great economic crisis of the 2010s curtailed almost all expenditure in the country, with investment hit the hardest. From 2010 to 2021, the country invested less even than what was needed to cover depreciation of existing capital, and this reduction in investment approached 88 billion euros (at constant 2015 prices). The Agricultural Sector did not remain outside this course. After the historic high of 2008, and although, unlike the economy as a whole, the amount of depreciation exceeded Gross Fixed Capital Formation for only four years (2011, 2012, 2014, and 2015), investment there too recorded a large decline.

There is, moreover, an element that initially appears paradoxical. Investment by the Greek AS (investment expenditure per utilized stremma) has remained over time higher than the EU average. This, however, does not mean that the sector invests more properly or more effectively: the great fragmentation of Greek agricultural land into many small holdings, as was also seen above, “artificially” increases the need for equipment. Many small producers buy separate machinery for their small areas and spend more overall, without this meaning greater productivity. Instead, producers often allocate their money to cheap basic equipment, often second-hand, rather than to plant or animal capital, or to more modern (and more expensive) machinery or supplementary equipment that would substantially improve production. In addition, the new capital serves small areas and not larger, more organized units.

This problem could be eased if the AS were organized more systematically into collective schemes. Cooperatives, producer groups, and various forms of collaboration, as other diaNEOsis studies have also shown, could reduce costs, exploit economies of scale, and allocate investment capital better. In Greece, however, participation in cooperatives reaches only about one fifth of production, while in the EU that share is twice as high. This low participation is also connected with organizational weaknesses, insufficient incentives, and a lack of trust due to problems of transparency and management.

5. Production costs5. Κόστος παραγωγής

The rise in production costs, especially after the crises of recent years, is one of the most pressing problems of the Greek Agricultural Sector. Agriculture depends heavily on energy and fertilizers. When the cost of these basic inputs rises, the cost of production rises directly as well. The problem becomes even more serious because the cost of fertilizers is closely tied to the cost of natural gas. Thus every major increase in natural gas prices quickly passes into agricultural production.

The war in Ukraine and the inflationary crisis worsened an already problematic situation. On the one hand, they placed even greater pressure on energy prices. On the other, they caused turmoil in the international fertilizer trade. Thus a new wave of price increases was created in the AS’s most basic inputs. The result was intense pressure on income, difficulties in production planning, and therefore uncertainty about the future. Finally, the report also refers to the possible effects of the more recent war, in Iran, on the cost of agricultural production.

6. Climate change and water Read also: Climate Change in Greece

Climate change is already affecting the Greek Agricultural Sector and will put even greater pressure on it in the coming years. Despite possible benefits in some cases, the overall outlook requires planning anew, since agriculture and livestock farming in the country will need significant adaptations. diaNEOsis’s recent studies on the effects of climate change on the Greek economy also map its impact on the Agricultural Sector.

What will these be? Over time, less rainfall, more frequent droughts, and many more days of extremely high temperatures are expected in the Greek territory. Agriculture depends directly on water, soil, and climate; therefore, when the soil loses moisture and temperatures rise, many crops become less productive.

Some regions will in fact bear an even heavier load. Thessaly and Central Macedonia face an increased risk of disasters from extreme weather events, and the recent experience of Daniel showed that phenomena of this kind can have very serious effects. At the same time, climate change also creates risks for products of particular importance to the Greek economy, diet, and exports, such as olives and cereals. Livestock breeders are likewise expected to face two major problems: less productive animal feed and greater water-consumption needs. This double burden may reduce the resilience of many units.

Finally, water management lies at the center of this problem. Agriculture consumes 80% to 85% of the country’s total water. In an environment where many regions already face serious sufficiency problems, more rational use of water and much better organization of irrigation are of great importance. diaNEOsis’s study of the roughly 450 Local and General Land Improvement Organizations (TOEV and GOEV, respectively), which manage most collective irrigation works and serve almost 45% of the country’s irrigated agricultural land, and therefore a very large part of total water consumption, highlights their dysfunctions, gaps, and dead ends.

The need for a National Plan Read also: The Agricultural Sector in Greece

As is clear from all the points above, the discussion about the future of agricultural production cannot be exhausted in piecemeal interventions or short-term responses. It requires a more comprehensive view, one that recognizes the strategic importance of the sector but also confronts its structural problems realistically. In lieu of an epilogue, and recognizing precisely this condition, diaNEOsis’s analysis underlines the necessity of a National Plan for Agricultural Development, which would take into account the challenges mentioned above as well as the ways they are connected with one another. It would therefore incorporate short-, medium-, and long-term actions for managing the major problems described in the report. Such a Plan should, of course, also take into account the priorities of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and specify them in the Greek context.

As the authors conclude: “The critical nature of the present conjuncture lies not only in the seriousness of the problems, but also in the fact that the margins of time have now narrowed suffocatingly. The present age structure of the agricultural population means that within the next few years it will be decided whether a significant part of Greek agricultural land will remain productively active or be led into gradual abandonment. Climate change makes clear that the decisions not taken today will be far more expensive tomorrow. International geopolitical upheavals and instability in the prices of energy, fertilizers, and food demonstrate that resilience is no longer an abstract concept, but a condition of economic and national security. And the permanent political procrastination to date has drastically limited the time still available for further delays.”

In the coming period, diaNEOsis will return to the subject of the Agricultural Sector, with more specialized analyses and initiatives that will touch both on issues of governance in enterprises and cooperative schemes and on the major question of CAP management. The aim is to highlight, on the one hand, the problems and, on the other, the corresponding policy measures for managing them.

THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR IN GREECE: CHALLENGES AND POLICY DIRECTIONS (.PDF)

BRIEF PRESENTATION OF THE ANALYSIS (.PDF)ΣΥΝΟΠΤΙΚΗ ΠΑΡΟΥΣΙΑΣΗ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΛΥΣΗΣ (.PDF)

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