FDBusiness.com

The economic accounts for agriculture show that total agricultural output in the European Union (EU) stood at €411.2 billion at basic prices in 2015, down by 1.8% compared with 2014. In 2015, the equivalent of 60% of the value of agricultural output generated was spent on intermediate consumption (input goods and services), while gross value added (ie the value of output minus the value of intermediate consumption) was the equivalent of 40% (or €164.6 bn).

With €75.2 bn (or 18% of the EU total) in 2015, France had the highest total agricultural output across Member States. It was followed by Italy (€55.2 bn, or 13%), Germany (€51.5 bn, or 13%), Spain (€45.5 bn, or 11%), the United Kingdom (€29.6 bn, or 7%), the Netherlands (€26.7 bn, or 6%), Poland (€22.3 bn, or 5%) and Romania (€15.5 bn, or 4%). This information comes from final estimates issued by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

In 2015 compared with 2014, the value of agricultural output followed contrasting patterns between the EU Member States. The highest increase was recorded in Latvia (+8.8%), followed by Lithuania (+5.9%) and Cyprus (+4.7%). In contrast, the largest falls were registered in Luxembourg (-9.9%), Slovakia (-9.7%), the Czech Republic (-8.6%), Germany (-7.8%), Romania (-7.4%) and Finland (-7.3%).

Significant Decrease in Animal Production

A change in the value of agricultural production is influenced by a price change or a volume change (or a combination of the two). The 1.8% decrease in EU agricultural output in 2015 compared with 2014 can be mainly attributed to a marked fall (by 5.5%) in the value of animal production, whose 8.5% decrease in prices was only partially offset by a 3.3% increase in volumes. This overall decrease in the value of animal production is due to steep falls by 14.4% for milk (-15.7% for prices; +1.5% for volume) and by 6.5% for pigs (-10.1% for prices; +4.0% for volume).

The value of crop output remained nearly stable in the EU (+0.9%) with prices up by 3.9% and volume down by 2.9%. Increases of 7.2% registered for vegetables (+7.6% for prices; -0.4% for volume) and of 10.4% for fruits (+8.1% for prices; +2.1% for volume) were partly compensated by decreases of 5.6% for cereals (-1.9% for prices; -3.8% for volume) and of 4.6% for forage plants (+1.8% for prices ; -6.3% for volume). EU agricultural input costs (intermediate consumption) are estimated to have decreased by 1.5% (+1.0% for prices; -2.5% for volume). This was partly due to a decline of 7.6% for energy and lubricants (-8.5% for prices; +1.0% for volume).