Three Quarters of Irish Farm Output Is Animals. In Greece It Is a Quarter.
Silver Data Lab Research Desk · Statistical analysis · Published on 16 May 2026
- Data source
- Eurostat
- Reference period
- 2025
- Last updated
- 29 August 2026
Key estimates
- Animal goods accounted for 44.4% of EU agricultural output by value in 2025.
- Ireland records 75.7% — three quarters of its farm output is animals and animal products.
- Greece records 23.4%, Bulgaria 26.3% and Romania 28.9%.
- Eleven Member States are above 50%, and all but Cyprus and Malta of them are in northern or central Europe.
- The split follows rainfall and sunshine more closely than it follows income or farm size.
What a farm sells
Agricultural output divides into two broad categories: crops, and animals with the products that come from them. The balance between the two describes what a country's farming is for.
Across the EU in 2025, animal goods accounted for 44.4% of agricultural output by value. Slightly less than half.
The national figures run from 75.7% to 23.4%, and the ordering is close to a map.
The grass economies
Ireland records 75.7%, the highest in the Union. Denmark follows at 63.0%, Luxembourg at 61.1%, Malta at 58.3%, Belgium at 58.2%, Finland at 54.4% and Estonia at 54.2%.
Ireland is the clearest case. It has high rainfall, mild winters and a long grass-growing season, and comparatively little land suited to arable crops at scale. Grass supports cattle and sheep, and cattle and sheep are what Irish agriculture largely produces.
Cyprus at 64.6% is the exception to the geography, and its position rests on a small total output — 885 million euro — in which intensive livestock is a large share of a small number.
The sun economies
Greece records 23.4%, the lowest in the Union. Bulgaria follows at 26.3%, Romania at 28.9%, Italy at 35.8% and Slovakia at 36.5%.
Greek agriculture is olives, fruit, vegetables and wine — crops that need sunshine and tolerate dry summers, and that generate high value per hectare without livestock. Portugal at 37.0% and Croatia at 37.7% sit in the same band.
Why this is a climate ranking
Almost every Member State above 50% has cool summers, reliable rainfall and a short or unreliable arable season. Almost every Member State below 40% has hot dry summers and land suited to permanent crops.
That is a stronger regularity than most rankings on this site produce, and it has an obvious cause: farming is one of the few economic activities whose output mix is directly constrained by weather. A Greek farmer cannot easily choose to run a dairy herd on Greek rainfall, and an Irish farmer cannot grow olives.
Income does not explain it. Ireland and Denmark are among the Union's wealthiest Member States and sit at the top; Estonia and Finland sit near them, and Romania and Bulgaria sit at the bottom alongside Italy, which is wealthier than Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria but poorer than Finland.
What follows from the split
The two halves of European agriculture face different risks and different policy. Livestock systems are exposed to feed costs, animal disease and emissions rules; crop systems are exposed to drought, frost at the wrong moment and the price of a small number of commodities.
An EU-wide agricultural policy is therefore acting on two sectors that share a name and little else, and the 44.4% average describes neither of them.
Animal goods as a share of agricultural output, 2025
| Country | % of agricultural output | Gap to EU averagepercentage points, derived |
|---|---|---|
| Ireland | 75.7 | +31.3 |
| Cyprus | 64.6 | +20.2 |
| Denmark | 63.0 | +18.6 |
| European Unionaggregate | 44.4 | — |
| Romania | 28.9 | −15.5 |
| Bulgaria | 26.3 | −18.1 |
| Greece | 23.4 | −21.0 |
What these figures cannot tell you
- Value, not volume or headcount
- The share is measured in euro of output, so it moves with the relative prices of animal and crop products. A year of high grain prices lowers the animal share everywhere without any change in what farms produce.
- Two categories cover an uneven mix
- Animal goods combine live animals and animal products such as milk and eggs; crop output combines cereals, industrial crops, vegetables, fruit and wine. Neither category is homogeneous, and countries with very different farming can land on the same share.
- Small producers are volatile
- In Cyprus, Malta and Luxembourg total output is small enough that the composition can shift noticeably from one year to the next. Their positions are less stable than those of the large producers.
- Climate is described, not measured
- The characterisation of Member States by rainfall and growing season is a description offered to explain the pattern. No climate data enters this analysis, and the correspondence is an observation rather than a tested relationship.
Frequently asked questions
- How much of EU farming is livestock?
- Animal goods — live animals plus products such as milk and eggs — accounted for 44.4% of EU agricultural output by value in 2025, slightly less than half.
- Which EU country is most dependent on livestock?
- Ireland, where animal goods are 75.7% of agricultural output. Cyprus follows at 64.6% and Denmark at 63.0%. Ireland's high rainfall and long grass-growing season favour cattle and sheep over arable crops.
- Which EU country farms the fewest animals?
- Greece, where animal goods are 23.4% of agricultural output, followed by Bulgaria at 26.3% and Romania at 28.9%. Greek farming is dominated by olives, fruit, vegetables and wine.
- Does wealth determine whether a country farms animals or crops?
- No. Ireland and Denmark are among the Union's wealthiest Member States and are at the top of the livestock ranking, while Italy is wealthier than Romania and Bulgaria and sits near them at the bottom. The pattern follows rainfall and growing season far more closely than income.
Methodological note
The economic accounts for agriculture publish output at basic prices by product group. This study uses animal goods, which combine live animals and animal products, as a share of total agricultural output, both at current prices in millions of euro.
Values are for 2025 and cover all 27 Member States.
The shares themselves are computed by Silver Data Lab as animal goods divided by total agricultural output, and the counts of Member States above 50% and below 40% follow from that calculation. Both are labelled as derived.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser. The filters below are the ones applied.
Economic accounts for agriculture - values at current prices
aact_eaa01
- Filters applied:
- freq=A · indic_agr=PRD_BP · unit=MIO_EUR · am_item=AM130000, AM160000 · time=2025
- Extracted:
- 2026-08-11
- Source last updated:
- 2026-05-13
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