Belgian farmers last year paid an average of €329 per hectare in annual rent for ploughed land and €287 per hectare for grassland, according to statistics published by Statbel, the Federal Government’s statistics service.
Annual agricultural rents for ploughed land have risen by an average of 83% since 1998 as competition for agricultural land is becoming increasingly fierce in Belgium. To exacerbate the issue, farms must contend with reduced profit margins when supplying goods to major supermarket chains. Little surprise then that Wallonia has seen the total number of farms in the region fall from 29,000 in 1991 to 13,000 in 2021.
In the last decade alone, rent for agricultural land has accelerated, from €257 per hectare per year in 2013 to around €340 in 2023. The problem is especially pronounced in Flanders, where ploughed land costs an average of €424/ha.
“At the provincial level, West Flanders is the most expensive with ploughed land renting on average €486/ha and grassland €440/ha. This is much more than double the costs in the province of Luxembourg (Wallonia) where rent for ploughed land grassland amounts to €196/ha and €178/ha respectively,” statisticians from Statbel noted.
No place for small producers
In April, angry farmers blocked a logistics centre belonging to Flemish supermarket giant Colruyt in protest of the supermarket's aggressive purchase of land for agricultural use, sometimes buying land at €100,000 per hectare. Young farmers say that land is increasingly unattainable, wherever they look in Belgium.
Even grassland has significantly increased in price, shooting up an average of 73% since 1998. Nicolas Nelis, secretary general of the Walloon Federation of Agriculture, told L’Avenir that he was “not surprised” by the massive increase in agricultural rents: "These figures again prove that whether for rent or purchase, land is increasingly complicated for farmers.”
Feeling the pinch
Despite prices in Wallonia being substantially lower than in Flanders, farmers in the region are still feeling the pinch. This is in spite of a rent coefficient system in place in the region, which aims to keep rental increases at no more than 5%.
By agricultural region, the coastal Zwindunes Et Polders (near the Flemish city of Knokke-Heist) is the most expensive at €471 per hectare. The most affordable land is found in Wallonia’s Famenne region, where the same area of land costs €163.
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Nelis explains that “The value of land depends on the structure of the soil, the quality of the land, its location, and the pressure of artificial development.”
There are no signs that agricultural rents are set to decrease, at least not for the next few years. “On the contrary, I think that rental prices will continue to rise. This is very worrying, especially for the younger generation who want to enter the profession but who risk being confronted with exorbitant production costs.”
