Changes in European cereal production between 2000 and 2010

Fehér, István – Kiss, István

Keywords: EU27, cereal sector, production quantity, intervention price, intervention stocks

In the EU-27, the harvested area of cereals decreased slightly between 2000 and 2010, mostly due to the increasing share in production of oilseed rape. Nevertheless, in contrast to the decreasing harvested area of cereals, the harvested amount of cereals stagnated; only minor fluctuations occurred that could be attributed to the different harvest years. The main reason for the stagnating harvested amount is the increasing yields per hectare, and these increasing yields are achieved by improving the biological resources and not by increasing the use of artificial fertilisers. The rules of the Euro-pean Union (EU) on intervention underwent several changes during the period of in-vestigation, in the absence of which it can be stated that the intervention system would have become unsustainable. At the same time, it can also be claimed that the reformed intervention system brought the EU’s markets and producers closer to the world mar-ket. Another important point is that the price of the cereals exceeded the intervention prices in the intervention systems in almost every year since the rules were changed. Therefore the need for intervention has almost ended.

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