Austria's Agriculture Suffered a Slump in Income in 2023 and is Subject to Continuous Structural Change

The increase in prices of many agricultural goods due to market turbulence following Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to high increases in the production value of Austrian agriculture in 2022. Despite the significantly more expensive operating resources, revenues clearly outweighed costs. In 2023, the price of numerous agricultural goods fell so sharply that factor income and profits collapsed despite falling production costs. Forestry, on the other hand, continued to develop robustly. As a long-term comparison shows, the agricultural area in Austria is continuously decreasing, while forests and other areas are gaining in relative importance. The number of farms has also steadily decreased in recent decades, although the decline has slowed considerably according to the latest farm census.