OXALIS

INTRODUCTION

CZECH BUSINESS AND TRADE

Czech Agriculture Is Changing

Within the Czech economy, agriculture has traditionally been an important sector, although its share of GDP or production and gross value added is very low, as in all industrialised countries. In the past decades, this sector has radically changed in connection with its privatisation after 1989.

Photo: pixabay.com

The current total land surface area in the Czech Republic is 7 887 027 hectares and the agricultural land surface area, i.e. land used for agricultural purposes, meaning work on arable land, in orchards, hop fields, vineyards and on permanent grassland, is 4 205 288 ha (approx. 53 per cent). Arable land accounts for 37.5 per cent of the total land surface area, i.e. 2 958 603 ha; most of the arable land (54 per cent) is of average fertility and 40 per cent of above-average fertility. The surface area of hop fields is 10 066 ha, of vineyards 20 008 ha, gardens 164 815 ha, orchards 45 245 ha, and permanent grassland (meadows and pastureland) 1 006 552 ha. About 3 700 000 hectares of the agricultural land surface area in the Czech Republic is in private hands, with only 20 000 ha being owned by the state.

• CROP PRODUCTION IS DOMINATED BY CEREALS Most of the crops grown in the Czech Republic are used for the production of food, feed and raw materials, mainly for the food and pharmaceutical industries. The most important group of crops is cereals, which are grown on more than one-half of the sowing area. In the early 1920s, the dominant cereal crop was rye, followed by barley. The surface area sown with wheat was about one-half of that sown with rye. In the early1950s, the sowing areas of these two cereal crops became equal.

Since then, the moderate decline in the size of areas sown with rye has continued, while the surfaces sown with wheat have grown rapidly, up to 850 000 ha in the mid- 1970s and 950 000 ha in the year 2000. The 5.21 t yield per hectare of cereal crops in 2018 was 0.30 t (5.4 per cent) lower in comparison with the preceding year, of which the yield in winter wheat was 5.46 t (5.77 t in 2017), in spring wheat 4.14 t (4.05 t), rye 4.74 t (4.92 t), winter barley 4.98 t (5.85 t), spring barley 4.93 t (4.96 t), oats 3.56 t (3.23 t) and corn 5.98 t (6.84 t).

• RAPE SUBSIDIES In 2018, the surface area sown with oleaginous seeds increased by 9.8 thous. ha (by 2.0 per cent), to 489.3 thous. ha. Total production amounting to 1 511.3 thous. t. was 241.9 thous. t higher than in 2017. The rape harvest showed a dynamic growth in the period after WWII. Rape only began to be grown in the 1970s, when its production amounted to some 40 000 ha. In the 1990s, the area increased to about 100 000 ha in connection with the production of oil for the food industry. Another essential change occurred in the 1990s, when the methyl ester made from rape began to be used as diesel additive or even as biodiesel. Extensive subsidies in the form of advantageous purchase prices led to the massive extension of rapeseed areas to the current level of last year´s 412 000 ha. The 2018

rape harvest was 1 410.8 thous. tonnes (23 per cent more than in the preceding year). On the other hand, poppy seed production was much lower in that year, when 13.7 thous. tonnes were harvested from a total surface area of 26.6 thous. ha, 32 per cent less than one year before.

• POTATO PRODUCTION IS FALLING RAPIDLY Before WWII, potatoes were grown on an area of about half a million hectares (approx. 12 per cent of arable land at that time). In the 1990s, the area of potatoes dropped to about 100 000 ha and, in 2018, potatoes in the Czech Republic were grown on an area of not more than 28 893 ha (approx. 1 per cent of arable land), where in the agricultural sector the potato area covered a surface of 22 889 ha and in the household sector 6 004 ha. The total potato harvest amounted to 713 266 tonnes, 13 per cent less than in 2017. Altogether 47 325 tonnes of this amount were early potatoes, 608 973 tonnes other potatoes and 56 967 tonnes seed potatoes. The hectare yield of potatoes was 24.69 t, 3.16 t less than in 2017.

• WORLD HOP PRODUCER The Czech Republic is traditionally one of the world’s largest hop producers. Hops are among this country´s most intensively grown crops and are a very important

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