Agricultural Economy and Policy Report
Political and Macroeconomic Situation
Austria is a democratic republic and a federal state, consisting of legislative institutions at the national and provincial levels. Austria has been a member of the European Union since 1995, and its trade policy issues with the U.S. mirror those of the general EU trade policy issues. Austria is led by a coalition government. The coalition consists of the centre-left Social Democratic Party and the centreright People’s Party.
Austria has a well-developed market economy and a high standard of living. It has a population of 8.2 million. As a condition of its accession to the European Union, Austria adopted and implemented all EU laws and regulations. Thus, the Austrian economy is closely tied to other EU economies,
especially Germany's. The Austrian economy, however, has consistently performed better than the EU average. The economy features a large service sector, a sound industrial sector, and a small but highly developed and intensive agricultural sector. Tourism is Austria’s largest single industry and biggest foreign exchange earner. Timber is a key industry with forestry taking place on 47 percent of the land area.
Agriculture and Economy
In 2011, the total production value of agriculture and forestry rose by 13.4 percent to about €8.9 billion, of which agriculture accounted for €7.2 billion and forestry for €1.7 billion. The total share of agriculture, forestry and fisheries in the GDP was 1.6 percent. At least 45 percent of the Austrian agricultural output is derived from animals and animal products. No less than 45 percent of the output comes from crop production. Austrian agriculture consists of small-to-medium sized farms. On average, an Austrian farm has only 19 hectares of utilized agricultural area.
