Castilla y León is once again the community with the largest average size of agricultural holdings, 75 hectares

Castilla y León is the autonomous community with the largest average size of agricultural area used per holding (SAU), with 74.95 hectares, 18.9 percent more than in 2020, when it reached 63.02 hectares, according to data from the 2023 survey on the structure of agricultural holdings by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

This means that Castilla y León has recorded the third largest increase in this period, after Galicia (41.3 percent) and the Community of Madrid (20.7 percent), and only decreased in the Canary Islands, with a drop of 23.3 percent.

In terms of livestock, Castile and Leon had the largest number of cattle with 1.41 million heads, while Extremadura led the sheep sector with 3.5 million heads, with Castile and Leon in second place with a total of 2,539,377. Andalusia leads the goat sector with 910,000 heads (139,603 in Castile and Leon).

Catalonia had the highest number of pigs, with 7.8 million heads - Castilla y León is in third place with 4.2 million - and poultry with 46.9 million - Castilla y León reached 24,732,037 in total - while Castilla y León had the highest number of rabbits (292,000).

The number of agricultural holdings in Spain fell by 12.4 percent between 2020 and 2023, to 784,141 compared to the 895,055 holdings in 2020, and the estimated utilised agricultural area (UAA) was 23.5 million hectares, a decrease of 1.6 percent, although the average area per holding grew by 13.2 percent, to 30.46 hectares.

The survey shows that the only increase in open-air crop acreage was in fruit trees, up 2 percent, while orchards and other woody crops recorded the largest declines, 42.6 percent and 12 percent respectively. Greenhouse acreage fell 14.8 percent to 55,300 hectares.

By territory, Castilla y León, Aragón and Extremadura were the communities with the largest average sizes of agricultural land used per farm in 2023, with 74.95, 61.81 and 51.53 hectares, respectively, while the Canary Islands (3.69 hectares), the Valencian Community (6.83 hectares) and Galicia (14.52 hectares) had the smallest average sizes.

Regarding livestock farming, the number of farms with livestock in 2023 stood at 144,939, which represents a drop of 10.5 percent compared to those existing in 2020, with those with poultry being the only ones to increase in that period (+0.3 percent).

As for the number of livestock, the largest declines were seen in goats, with a 12.1% drop, and sheep, with a fall of 11.4%. Meanwhile, the only species that increased from 2020 to 2023 was poultry, with a growth of 9.5%.