The Netherlands is the most expensive country to buy farmland, according to official EU figures by Eurostat.
The information comes from a new set of statistics on agricultural land prices and rents from 2016, which covers most of the EU Member States.
On average, the Netherlands recorded the most expensive purchase price of one hectare of arable land in the EU in 2016 at €63,000 (£54,800).
Indeed, the price of arable land in every region of the Netherlands was above all other available national averages in the EU.
However, among the EU regions for which data are available, the most expensive price for arable land was in the Liguria region of Italy, at €108,000 (£94,000) per hectare.
The UK comes in at fourth most expensive, with the purchase price of one hectare estimated at €25,742 (£22,405).
Arable land was cheapest in Romania, with a hectare costing an average €1,958 (£1,704). At the regional level, a hectare of arable land cost least in the Yugozapaden region of Bulgaria, at an average of €1,165 (£1,015).
The level of land prices depends on a number of national laws, regional factors such as climate, proximity to networks and localised factors, such as soil quality, slope, drainage, as well as the market forces of supply and demand.
From the data available, the strongest growth in land prices of arable land between 2011 and 2016 was in the Czech Republic (a three-fold increase), Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Hungary (a two-fold increase). Prices rose in other Member States too, albeit at much lower rates.
