International Agriculture News

E.U.’s total agricultural output down due to drop in crops, livestock

A drop in crop and livestock outputs led to a 2.8% decrease in overall agricultural output in the E.U. in 2016, according to Eurostat.

Total agricultural output was €405 billion in 2016, compared to €416 billion in 2015.

Crop value output dropped 2.5% with prices down by 1.8% and volume down by 0.7%. The 13.5% decline for cereals was partly offset by increases of 23.5% for potatoes, of 4.5% for forage plants and of 2.7% for industrial crops.

The value of livestock output dropped 3.3% mainly due to a decrease in prices, which was partly offset by an increase in volume.

E.U. agricultural input costs (intermediate consumption) have decreased by 3.4%. This was partly due to a decline of 8.6% for fertilizers and soil improvement, 7.8% for energy and lubricants, 5.1% for maintenance of buildings and 2.7% for animal feeding stuffs.

With €70.3 billion (or 17% of the E.U. total) in 2016, France had the highest total agricultural output across member states. It was followed by Italy (€53.4 billion, or 13%), Germany (€52.9 billion, or 13%), Spain (€46.8 billion, or 12%), the U.K. (€27.9 billion, or 7%), the Netherlands (€27 billion, or 7%), Poland (€22.4 billion, or 6%) and Romania (€15.4 billion, or 4%).

In 2016 compared with 2015, the value of agricultural output followed contrasting patterns between the E.U. member states. In relative terms, the highest increase was recorded in Slovakia (10.7%), ahead of Poland (4.6%), Hungary (4.1%), the Czech Republic (3.5%) and Croatia (3.4%).

In contrast, the largest fall was registered in Estonia (-19.8%), followed by Latvia (-8.3%), France (-6.5%), Denmark (-5.4%) and Slovenia (-5.2%).

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