farming shrinks

Hi folks, this is cited from re-origin of the species by Torill Kornfeldt

Q: What is “farming shrinks”? Simply wast lands?



He and his supporters hope that areas of Europe that have been abandoned as farming shrinks can be transformed into nature reserves.

"Shrinks" is a verb. The agricultural industry is in decline (at least in area) and so occupies less and less land.

The sentence is easier to get your head round when you realise that the whole complex phrase areas of Europe [that have been abandoned (as farming shrinks)] is one long noun phrase: it's all the subject of can be transformed...

NB I read your title and confess that when I first glanced at the sentence and homed in on the word shrinks followed by a verb, I did think for a split second that shrinks might be a noun. Psychotherapists for the agricultural sector, perhaps? 👁 Wink ;)
This illustrates one of the things that makes reading English difficult. With so few inflections in English, the same word form can function as multiple parts of speech, so we sometimes have to read a large chunk of text before we can parse a sentence correctly.

Actually after your explanations I got it, and concluded that it was very easy, once having understood that was verb not a noun.
Maybe if it was a period after and before, it would not be so complex for me.
He and his supporters hope that areas of Europe that have been abandoned, as farming shrinks, can be transformed into nature reserves.