Abstract Farm structural change can be examined from several perspectives, and—as outlined in the preceding chapter—shifts in the composition of farm specialisations or in farm size affect a range of SAFE and JUST outcomes. In this section we present the findings of a recent study on farm holder exit decisions and discuss how these results can inform assessments of SAFE/JUST impacts and the parametrisation of simulation models that might use information about structural changes. The analysis uses the German Farm Structure Survey (FSS) to construct novel neighbourhood level measures of land market competition that use historic growth trajectories of neighbouring farms and size of large or the largest neighbours. These estimates show that higher local competition for agricultural land raises the probability of farm exit, but the magnitude of this relationship varies systematically across farm categories. Independently to the effect of land-market competition, the analysis informs that specialist field crop, horticulture and permanent crop farms exhibit the highest average exit probabilities, whereas specialist livestock, granivore, mixed cropping, mixed livestock and mixed crop livestock farms have considerably lower exit risks. Further, larger farms in terms of agricultural area have lower exit rates than smaller farms. If the observed pattern is stable and the land of exiting farms is taken over by entrants or active farms of any specialisation with equal likelihood, the overall composition of the farm sector would shift toward a larger share of mixed and grazing systems. Conversely, if land is acquired predominantly by new entrants or farms of the same specialisation, the sectoral structure would remain unchanged apart from a reduction in the number of operating holdings. Further information can be acquired in deliverable 3.2. Citation Neuenfeldt, S., Gocht, A., Heckelei, T., Storm, H. (2026): The Impact of Spatial Competition on Farm Exits: A Study of the German Agricultural Sector. Discussion paper, 10.5281/zenodo.19129286. ----------------- Funding acknowledgement Funded by the European Union. Grant Agreement No. 101060075. Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Legal notice This document was produced under the terms and conditions of Grant Agreement No. 101060075 for the European Commission. It does not necessary reflect the view of the European Union and in no way anticipates the Commission’s future policy in this area. The European Commission is not liable for any consequence stemming from the reuse of this publication. © BrightSpace, 2025 The reuse of this document is authorised under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CCBY 4.0) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that reuse is allowed provided appropriate credit is given and any changes are indicated. For any use or reproduction of elements that are not owned by the BrightSpace consortium, permission may need to be sought directly from the respective right holders. Project information BrightSpace Horizon Europe project Grant Agreement No. 101060075 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101060075 CALL: Innovative governance, environmental observations and digital solutions in support of the Green Deal WORK PROGRAMME Topic ID: HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01-12 EU agriculture within a safe and just operating space and planetary boundaries BrightSpace Project coordination: Wageningen Economic Research, The Hague, NL Contact: brightspace.wser@wur.nl | Website: www.brightspace-project.eu Project duration: 1 November 2022 – 31 October 2027.
Neuenfeldt et al. (Fri,) studied this question.