The history of Estonian agriculture is full of decisive changes. Due to European-like cultivation culture, which was brought in, developed and adapted to our conditions by German landlords, Estonian agriculture reached an exceptionally high level already in Russian empire. In spite of the demolish of collective holdings and the establishment of small farms during the land reform after Estonian War of Independence, agriculture was blooming during the first independence (1918-1940), supplying European markets with the production of high quality.

Estonian agriculture was able to recover from Stalinistic involuntary collectivization, deportation of farm elite to Siberia as well as from the demotivational influence of  centralized command economy, which all followed to the occupation of Soviet Union. In late 1980s, Estonia was among the most progressive countries in various fields of agricultural production per person.

The third major agricultural reform in 20th century took place in early 1990s – national and collective holdings were divided into smaller private units. As the smaller holdings were not able to contribute sufficiently to the agricultural production, Russian market has fell off and there was a serious lack of interest of state, 1990s were the years of dramatic degeneration in Estonian agricultural history. Some positive signs could be seen in the end of the decade with the recovery of  common activity, creation of central cooperatives and intensification of international cooperation.

In 21st century, after the accession to the European Union, environmental health, management of climatic changes and preservation of cultural inheritance have become more and more important. In Estonia, there is more agricultural land per person than in the majority of other European countries, which enables crop farming for food as well as for the production of bioenergy. This confirms that Estonian agriculture has perspective and has not yet reached its potential. The flagship of animal breeding is still milk production. Although the number of dairies has decreased year by year, our milk producers have shown great results in improving production indicators and milk quality.

One of the most important strengths of Estonian agriculture is our comprehensive scientific and research work, which supports innovation and the arrival of new technologies. The future of Estonian sustainable agriculture is targeted to precision farming, which promotes green ideology through scientific and infotechnological approach.