Overview
The EU agricultural outlook, published once a year, presents the outlook for major EU agricultural markets, income and environment from now until 2032. It is based on a set of assumptions regarding macroeconomic conditions, the fixed agricultural and trade policy environment, and international market developments based on the latest OECD-FAO outlook.
These assumptions imply relatively smooth market developments when in reality, markets tend to be much more volatile. Therefore, the outlook is not a forecast. More precisely, the projections correspond to the average trends agricultural markets are expected to follow in a given macroeconomic environment, if policies were to remain unchanged.
Latest issue
The Medium-term outlook report provides an overview of the medium-term prospects for major EU agricultural markets, income and environment until 2032.
Related information
Data visualisations from the European Commissions' Joint Research Centre
About the report
The report presents the medium-term outlook for the EU's agricultural markets, income and environment from now until 2032, based on a set of coherent macroeconomic assumptions considered to be most accurate at the time of the analysis.
This edition was prepared in a significantly changing environment:
- Early 2022, the post-COVID recovery led to supply and trade disruptions and increasing commodity prices and input costs.
- New severe shocks came with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, bringing further uncertainties to agricultural markets and global food security.
- All this came on top of changes observed due to disruptive weather events related to climate change, and animal disease outbreaks.
The report is taking into consideration the CAP Strategic Plans of individual EU countries and possible ensuing market developments. It also contains observations on the implications of:
- CAP specific objectives,
- broader changes related to the implementation of sustainable production methods,
- the reduction in energy dependency,
- the reinforcement of sector resilience,
- changing diets.
Overall, sustainable growth remains a key factor affecting future developments in EU agriculture. Actions stemming from the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies are taken into account when corresponding legislation is approved and implemented. Otherwise, the direction of change related to these actions is only considered to the extent observable so far in individual markets.
The report is accompanied by analysis of a selected set of market uncertainties in order to measure the potential for variation in the results. Possible variations stem in particular from fluctuations in the macroeconomic environment, and in yields of the main crops and milk. Specific scenarios are also presented for extreme weather events and a possible lower livestock density compared to the current levels on a regional level.
This Commission report is a joint effort between the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development and the Joint Research Centre, with the Directorate-General being responsible for the content.
