Danish farming accounts almost 2/3 of the total area of the country because the Danish agriculture produces food stuffs sufficient for c.15 million people, which is three times the population of Denmark. Although the part played by agriculture in the Danish economy overall has steadily fallen in line with industrialization and economic developments as a whole.

    1. Danish Agricultural Policy :
    Danish agriculture is to a great extent governed by the agricultural policies laid down by the EU, the agricultural products of whose member countries are guaranteed a selling price above that of the world market, irrespective of whether sales are to the domestic market, the EU or to markets outside the EU. So economically, Danish agriculture has benefited greatly from the EU agricultural policy.

    2. Danish Farm Structure :
    In the first half of the 20th century there was about 200,000 farms with an average area of c. 16 hectares, but after the 1950 numbers began to decline slowly. From 1960 this trend accelerated, and during the 1960s an average of 5000 farms disappeared each year. In the 1970s the decline leveled off to 2600 holdings a year, an annual rate that has persisted into the 1990s. The number of holdings has now fallen to c. 67,300 with an average area of 40 hectares. The drop has been most pronounced among farms offering full-time family employment, and this process is expected to continue so that by the turn of the millennium there will be c. 20,000 farms providing full-time employment, and having a substantial average area.
    At the same time changes have taken place in farming methods; farmers are to increasing extent concentrating their efforts on one sole branch of farming, and specialization in animal production has lead to fewer types, but larger numbers of livestock.

    3. Numbers employed :
    In 1994, primary agriculture, including fur farming and horticulture, employed 110,000 people, or 4.4 % of the country's workforce. Most Danish farms are freehold, 91% of them being family-run farms in individual ownership, 7 % run by companies of various kinds, and the rest owned by the State, local authorities, foundations etc. Area in lease hold make up 21.5% of the agricultural area and principally represent land leased out to supplement existing holdings.

    4. Agricultural Production :
    Danish annual harvest yield in plant production varies between 140 and 160 million crop units, of which c. 60% are cereal crops. Over 90% of plant production is used as animal feed, primarily for pigs and cattle. In the early 1990s, the net value of Danish agricultural production in the home and export markets, calculated as gross domestic products at factor cost (GDP), was c. 60 billion kroner a year. Of this c. 25 billion came from the primary agriculture and c. 35 billion from manufacturing and processing. Altogether agriculture contributed 15 % of the total GDP of the industrial production in Denmark