Agriculture: Commission publishes Short-Term Outlook report

The Commission today published the Short-Term Outlook for EU arable crops, dairy and meat markets in 2016 and 2017. Thanks to the boost in exports to China, EU pigmeat exports are expected to reach a record level in 2016 at 2.4 million tonnes (+18% on annual basis). Current negotiations for access to other markets could even further improve the export situation. EU beef gross production is expected to further increase by 2.4% due to a higher number of slaughterings and very dynamic live exports. As for dairy, EU prices have since the first week of May started increasing for butter, whole milk powder and whey powder and to a lesser extent for skimmed milk powder, cheddar and gouda. As was the case in 2009, these developments are not reflected in milk prices paid to farmers as the EU dairy market remains oversupplied. Despite the maintenance of the Russian ban, EU dairy exports are overall expected to increase by 5% in 2016, which means 900,000 tonnes of milk more than last year. The EU cereal production for the marketing year 2015/2016 is expected to be high, only 5.4% below the record 2014/2015 harvest, at 310 million tonnes of usable production. The full report can be found here.