Another Bad Year for German Farms

If the German government's annual agriculture report is anything to go by, German farmers can expect a poor year. Firms in the agricultural sector suffered average losses of 6.6 percent, or €33,593 ($36,238), for the 2001/2002 business year, said Renate Kunäst, minister of consumer protection, food and agriculture. Künast attributed the negative forecast to the fall in prices for pigs and milk. The minister reckoned with a 20 percent decline in profits in the sector for 2003, remarking that profits had increased by 14.8 in 2001 and 19.4 in 2001. The minister also reported that around 395,000 agriculture firms had gone out of business last year, around 4 percent of the total companies in the sector.