The European Union's 27 national governments have played a marked role in their farmers' incomes increasing over last year's losses, according to the EU's statistics office.
Farm incomes have increased 12.3 percent thus far this year, the Wall Street Journal reports. Last year's numbers fell 10.7 percent and the difference is partially due to those nation's governments implementing measures as a result of agricultural enterprises' trucks and tractors clogging streets last year as prices and economies collapsed.
The amount of laborers on EU farms has consistently tapered, partially as a result of unifying farms. The EU has encouraged the industry to consolidate.
As the EU is immersed in a discussion about the Common Agricultural Policy, various practices of the policy may end up being changed or eliminated, while other practices will probably stand. A subsidy program likely will not change. Europe has 1.4 million dairy farms while the U.S. has 60,000.
Those dairy farms also played a role in the rise in farm incomes per worker, which increased most in nations populated by higher amounts of dairy farms. Those income levels rose nearly 55 percent in Denmark, almost 49 percent in Estonia and 32 percent in the Netherlands.