Commission publishes the latest short-term outlook for main EU agricultural sectors

ecThe latest agricultural short-term outlook report published by the European Commission gives insights on the main agricultural markets’ trends, production, and trade for 2019 and 2020. It shows among other findings that the EU cereal production is expected to recover from last year’s low in spite of the summer drought. Indeed, wheat and barley production should respectively increase by 12.5pc and 10pc in 2019 and 2020. On the other hand, difficult weather conditions are expected to affect EU rapeseed production. EU sugar beet production should stabilize at 119 million tonnes for 2019-2020, close to the levels of the previous year. EU exports of olive oil, pig meat, and processed apples and tomatoes should reach higher levels than in previous years. Similarly, access to new markets and an increase of volumes to existing partners has led to an expected increase of EU beef exports by 8pc in 2019.