(13 April 2021) – In 2020, the agricultural sector contributed an estimated €171.9 billion towards the EU’s GDP, the equivalent of 1.3% of the total. In comparative terms, this was only slightly less than the GDP of Greece.
The agricultural industry in the EU created an estimated gross value added of €177 billion in 2020. One way of looking at this is that for every 1 euro spent on the cost of goods and services used in the production process, the farms in the EU created added value of €0.75.
The total value of agricultural production in 2020 was an estimated €411.8 billion, of which about half (52.8%) came from crops (including 14.0% from vegetables and horticultural plants and 11.2% from cereals) and just under two fifths (38.6%) from animals and animal products (including 13.1% from milk and 9.6% from pigs). The remainder was from agricultural services and inseparable non-agricultural activities.
Agricultural income per annual work unit (AWU) in the EU was an estimated 1.5% lower in 2020 than in 2019. This slight decline at the level of the EU included lower agricultural incomes in five of the seven largest agricultural producers: Italy (-4.9%), the Netherlands (-5.1%), France (-7.6%), Romania (-13.8%) and Germany (-14.6%).
A majority of Member States, though, recorded increases in this index in 2020. The largest upturns were in Lithuania (+30.2%), Croatia (+13.2%), Spain (+13.0%) and Hungary (+11.6%).