Agricultural Output Prices Increase 14.5% Over The Year

The agricultural price index (API) for all outputs increased by 3.2% in March and by 14.5% on last year. The price index for all inputs fell by 0.1% in March but is up 9.7% on last year.

Crop outputs prices increased 2.8% on March and 27% on last year. Potato output prices continue to rise by another 14% in March and are more than twice the price of last year with an increase of 125%. Price rises were offset by a fall in cereals prices of 3.4% in March but over the year they are still 25% higher than last year. Animal and animal products prices increased by 4% in March and are 5.6% up on last year. Animal slaughter prices increased by 7.4% largely due to a 20% rise in sheep prices. They are however still 12% below last year's prices.

Prices for agricultural inputs have not changed much in March. The overall index changed only by a 0.1% fall. Over the year prices generally are up by 12%. The increase is due mainly to a 46% rise in the price of seeds and feed price increases of 16% both sets of prices being affected by the poor cereal harvest of 2012.

Farm Workers Wages Have Gone Up Across Europe

Real agricultural income per worker across the EU27 has gone up by 1% in 2012 compared with an increase of 8% in 2011 according to estimates from Eurostat. The increase results from an increase in real agricultural income of -0.5% and a reduction in agricultural labour input of -0.5%. EU27 real agricultural income per worker has increased by 29.7% between 2005 and 2012 while agricultural labour input has fallen by 20%. The main reasons for the rise in real agricultural income is a rise in the value of output of the agricultural sector at producer prices in real terms of 1.8% and input costs growing by 1.6%. The increase in the value of output at producer prices of 1.8% is due to an increase in the value of crop production of 0.5%, due to an increase in real prices of 6.3% offset by a decrease in volume of 5.4%, and a larger increase for animal production of 3.8% due to an increase in prices (3.9%) and a slight fall in volume (-0.2%).

Real Agricultural Income In Europe

The first estimates on real agricultural income from Eurostat show that real agricultural income per worker in the EU27 increased by 12.3% in 2010 after a decrease of 10.7% in 2009. The cause of the increase in the index was a combination of an increase in real agricultural income and a fall in agricultural labour input.

Real agricultural income per worker is estimated to have increased by 10% between 2005 and 2010 while agricultural labour input has decreased by 12.7%.

The value of EU27 agricultural output at producer prices increased by an estimated 4.3% due mainly to an increase in the value of both crop production and animal production by 6.3% and 2.4% respectively.