On average, entrepreneurial income from agriculture for farmers amounted to NOK 192,000 in 2015.
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This represents an increase of NOK 18,000, or 10 percent, from the previous year.
The gross income averaged NOK 642,000. Entrepreneurial income from agriculture amounted to 30 percent of the gross income in 2015.
Agricultural holdings vary considerably in size, from hobby-like production to holdings with a turnover of more than NOK 1 million. This is the main reason for the considerable variation in entrepreneurial income from agriculture and debt.
In 2015, farmers’ gross income averaged NOK 642,000. The gross income was made up of NOK 316,000 from wages and pensions, NOK 265,000 from total entrepreneurial income and NOK 61,000 from capital income.
Average entrepreneurial income from agriculture for all 39 600 farmers was NOK 192,000. For all 27 800 farmers with a positive entrepreneurial income from agriculture, this income amounted to an average of NOK 273,000.
Agricultural holdings are classified by type of farming. For farmers with specialist pig/poultry, entrepreneurial income from agriculture averaged NOK 470,000 in 2015.
Farmers with mixed cattle and mixed livestock also had agricultural income in excess of NOK 400,000. Agricultural income for sheep-farmers averaged NOK 91,000.
Farmers with specialist pig/poultry increased their agricultural income by NOK 60,000 from the previous year. The corresponding figures for farmers with cereals and with sheep were NOK 12,000 and NOK 1,000.
For farmers with the farm type mixed cattle, three out of four had agriculture as their main source of income. Only 8 percent of the farmers with cereals and 14 percent of the sheep-farmers had agriculture as their main source of income.
Farmers had a total debt of NOK 78.7 billion in 2015, corresponding to an average of NOK 2.0 million per farmer.
The debt ranged from NOK 1.2 million for farmers with specialist sheep up to NOK 5.0 million on average for farmers with specialist pig/poultry and with mixed livestock.
About 19 percent of the farmers had less than NOK 100,000 in debt, while 14 percent had more than NOK 4 million in debt. Total interest paid in 2015 amounted to NOK 2.7 billion, with an average of NOK 68,000 per farmer. ■
Under an intense surge of arctic air, Friday morning will begin with the coldest temperatures so far this season across much of the central and eastern U.S. with blustery conditions and a piercing wind chill.