Over the next decade, the EU’s forest area will continue to grow, organic milk production is expected to increase and consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables is expected to rise, according to the EU agricultural outlook report for 2021-2031 published by the European Commission on Thursday 9 December 2021.
The report, published in conjunction with the EU’s annual agriculture conference, also shows that the value of EU agricultural production is expected to grow by 0.7% per year over the period 2021-2030. The share of energy and fertiliser costs will increase to 22%.
Markets. According to the Commission, the total EU cereal area is expected to decrease to 51.2 million hectares between 2021 and 2031. This will result in a cereal production of 276 million tonnes in 2031 (-2.5% compared to 2021).
The EU sugar area is expected to stabilise in the medium term and EU production is expected to increase slowly, reaching 16.3 million tonnes in 2031. “A decline in human consumption of sugar is expected, reflecting a shift to diets with less sugar”, the report says.
Sustainability targets could result in a slowdown in the annual growth of EU milk production (-0.5% per year) to 162 million tonnes in 2031.
Organic milk production is expected to increase to 8% of the market by 2031 (3.5% in 2019).
European beef production is expected to fall, as is EU beef consumption (-0.9 kg per capita).
Health, environmental and societal concerns are expected to shift consumer preferences away from pork, leading to an annual decline in production of 0.8% over the period 2021-2031, according to the Commission. Nevertheless, the EU is expected to remain the world’s largest exporter of pork.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/3dBmXWE (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)