Agriculture and food
Denmark has always been and will always be a country where agriculture plays an important role. There is a lot of history linked to agriculture in Denmark and it has always played a big role economically, politically and socially and will continue to do so. This mainly roots in the fact the Denmark as a country is very suitable to agriculture and therefor always have been able to have a large production.
Denmark is a very flat country and is therefore great for certain types agriculture, like wheat and barley as well as animal productions. Denmark has a total area of almost 43.000km2. More than half of Denmark total area is cultivated land for agricultural use. The agricultural production in Denmark is very large and would be able to feed around 15 million people. This is almost three times the population of Denmark and also the reason for high exports of agricultural products.
Danish agriculture:
Agriculture plays an important role of Denmark, both in the terms of size and economically speaking. The Danish agricultural sector takes up a large part of the total area of Denmark. In 2020 61 pct. of Denmark was being used for agricultural production.
The agricultural sector in Denmark consists of a lot of different productions and holdings. The biggest agricultural holding in 2020 when looking at animal production was cattle. When focusing on plant production, the largest holding in 2020 was grain.
In the last couple of decades, there has been a trend in the agricultural holdings becoming larger but fewer in numbers. This is mainly due to specialising in specific types of productions and to the economies of scale that comes with larger productions. This has also helped Danish agriculture production to become more competitive on the international market.
Organic agriculture plays a big part in the Danish agricultural sector. The demand for organic products in Denmark has only risen in the past couple of years. In 2020, 11, 7 pct. of the total agricultural area in Denmark went to organic production.
Danish food cluster:
The Danish food cluster plays an important role for the Danish economy. It is one of the biggest exporters of Denmark. In 2018, the Danish food cluster was measured to be accountable for around one fourth of Denmark’s total product export. It was also measured that around 75 pct. of production in the Danish food cluster was exported.
The Danish food cluster is a large sector, which produces and exports many different products. In 2020 the three main products that accounted for the largest parts of exports was pork with 22 pct, fish and seafood with 14 pct., and dairy products with 12 pct.
Source: Landbrug & fødevare
If you are interested in more information about Denmark and the Danish agriculture and food sector please visit: Food Nation Home - Denmark Food
For any questions, please contact Jesper Vibe-Hansen at [email protected].