A total of 1,096 companies began an agricultural activity in the Flemish and Brussels-Capital Regions in 2025, 62 percent more than in 2024, Statistics Flanders reports. But the jump does not mean a wave of new farms.
The agency links the rise partly to the pension criterion for active farmers, which came into force in 2025. Many farms were taken over completely or given a new, younger manager, and when a new company number is assigned the business is registered as a starter.
Of the 2025 starters, 41 percent were sole proprietorships, 28 percent legal entities and 31 percent associations or partnerships of natural persons. Some 35 percent began as specialised livestock farms, 33 percent as specialised arable farms, 12 percent as mixed farms and 10 percent as horticulture specialists. No type could be determined for 11 percent.
At the same time 1,145 farms ceased activity in 2025. The agency says that figure is also partly linked to the pension rule, because where a company was taken over or given a younger manager the original number was classed as a stopper. Sole proprietorships made up 87 percent of the farms that stopped.
The number of start-ups fell between 2010 and 2019, apart from 2014 and 2017, and has been rising since 2019. Closures fell from 2010 to 2016 and have risen again since 2018.
Photo: Johan Allard / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
Source: The Cattle Site
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