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| 13 feb 2020 |
11:47 |
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Second forecasts of the economic accounts for agriculture - Belgium
The second forecasts of the economic accounts for agriculture confirm an improvement in 2019. The sector’s gross value added would therefore once again pass the 2 billion mark (2.28 billion compared to 1.96 in 2018). The significant differences with the previous estimate concern cereals, industrial crops and fruit.
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For these last two categories, the values have been revised upwards following, respectively, an upward revision of yield estimates for some industrial crops and higher prices for pears than initially estimated.
Finally, the value of cereal crops is expected to decrease compared to 2018, as the increase in the volume of the harvest is not sufficient to compensate for the drop in crop prices. The press release below is updated with these new results.
Some bright spots after a historically difficult year 2018 for the agricultural sector
The second estimates of farmers’ incomes for the year 2019 made by Statbel1, the Belgian statistical office, have been submitted to the European Commission (Eurostat).
- After a year 2018 that put a large part of the agricultural sector to the test, the first observations on this year and season 2019 seem to be better: the sector’s net value added would increase by 26.1 %, but without exceeding the 2017 results.
- Both crop and livestock productions have registered value increases of around 6 %.
In 2019, the agricultural industry’s turnover has increased by 6.1 % and intermediate consumptions by 2.9 %. The sector’s net value added is therefore higher than the previous year and the average of the last five years. In general, the medium-term analysis of the agricultural industry’s production value reveals high variability due to the unpredictable nature of crop yields and to price volatility.
Evolution of the total value of output, of intermediate consumption and of net value added (million of euros)
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1 In cooperation with regional authorities and experts.
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