In Slovenia there are about 676,000 hectares of agricultural land, of which 605,000 hectares are farmed land. Agricultural areas are important for food production, environmental protection, conservation of cultural landscape and population of rural areas, and to perform ecological functions. The size of agricultural land is steadily decreasing due to intensive land development and overgrowing. There are efforts to protect it from permanent changes by subsidising owners and by applying appropriate management mechanisms, including land-use type determination, ongoing cultivation, farm sales and leases, and implementation of measures in the framework of agrarian operations.

Register of agricultural holdings

Data on agricultural holdings in the Republic of Slovenia are kept in the Register of agricultural holdings (RKG). Any holdings eligible for registration must be entered in it. The RKG holds information such as the address, head of the farm and land units of individual agricultural holding. With regard to farms, information on potential farm members, farm employees and secondary activities are also kept. The RKG also includes information from other mandatory databases, such as participation in organic production or in other quality schemes.

Each unbroken area of agricultural land of the same use type within an agricultural holding is referred to as GERK. Correct registration of GERKs is a prerequisite for obtaining funds from agricultural policy measures.

Support for the economic stability of farmers

Farmers have a legal right to social security, which includes pension, basic health and other forms of insurance. Farm members contribute to the implementation of social security policy by making regular contributions.

In order to monitor the management of agricultural holdings, a system of collection and processing of farm accountancy data is organised and controlled in accordance with the FADN methodology, which is specifically adjusted to agricultural activities. The collected data are intended for monitoring the state of the Slovenian agriculture and for comparison with other EU members.

Secondary activities in farming are also promoted. These enable a better use of the farm’s capacity, bring additional income to the head of the farm and create new jobs. In recent years, interest in secondary activities in farming has been increasing, so the process of amending the relevant legislation has been intensified.