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94 | North America and Europe (NAE) Report

Figure 3-5. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita ($) and agricultural GDP per economically active person in agriculture (2005). Source: European Commission, 2006b.

3.2.3 Impacts of advances in AKST on the growth of output and on farm businesses
The application of AKST has enabled farmers to increase yields, but It has also resulted in a fundamental restructur­ing of the industry. Many farmers now sell directly to large scale retailers or processors using a variety of contractual relationships. Small and part-time farms accounted for 86% of all farms in North America and almost half the farmers had full time jobs elsewhere (Thompson, 1986; Miljkovic,

Figure 3-6. Agricultural imports and exports in Europe and North America. Source: FAO, 2008c.

 

2005). A growing number of farmers will have to get sec­ond jobs when subsidies from the CAP are slashed in 2013 (Barthelemy, 2007; Fischer-Boel, 2007). Farmers have also sought to secure their position by di­versifying their businesses to include activities that are not limited to agricultural production: these include direct sell­ing (e.g., farmers' markets), agritourism or outdoor leisure activities. For many of these pluriactive farms, a minority of income now comes from farming. For instance, UK data shows that more than 50% of farms have income from di-
Table 3-4. External trade of EU 15 in 2002 in eight selected prod­ucts.

  % of world trade 2002
  Imported by EU Exported by EU
Total cereals 6.9 6.7
Oil seeds 29.2 1.9
Wine 15.0 29.8
Refined sugar 3.9 18.0
Fresh milk 1.1 5.6
Total meat 8.2 8.1
Eggs 3.1 14.5

Source: FAO, 2008c.

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