Fewer Irish women own farms in the State than in most of the rest of the EU, where the average female ownership stands at 24 per cent.
The Department of Agriculture and Food's annual report which was published on Thursday showed that only 11 per cent of Irish farms were owned by women.
The report said that in all there were 136,500 farms in the Republic, of which 300 were family-owned farms, which was a decrease of 2.3 per cent on the 2001 figure.
Dealing with farm ownership by gender, the report said that the most recent EU Farm Structures Survey found that the majority of farms in the EU had a sole owner and, in terms of gender distribution, some 24 per cent of owners were women.
"This varied across member-states, with Mediterranean countries showing a higher proportion of female ownership," said the report.
It noted that Italy and Austria had the highest female ownership at 30 per cent, with most other Mediterranean countries ranging from one-fifth to one-quarter.
This was followed by Spain and Greece, where women ownership was above the EU average in the 15 EU states in which the survey was carried out.
Women in Portugal and France owned 24 per cent of the farms and 20 per cent of the land in Luxembourg was in the hands of women.
In Belgium the figure was 15 per cent, followed by the UK where ownership stood at 13 per cent of the farms.
Ireland, on 11 per cent, was next in the European league with Finland also on 11 per cent.
Only Sweden, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands had fewer women owners than Ireland.
The report said the number of persons employed in agriculture in Ireland had decreased by 5 per cent in 2002-03, but there had been an 8 per cent rise in the number of females employed, who now account for over one-fifth of labour input.