EU-15 beef production suffers dip this year

Beef production in the EU-15 has dropped by 1.5% or 100,000 tonnes this year to 7.1 million tonnes.

The EU-15 consists of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

The result was not surprising, as latest data from the Common Market Organisation Forecasting Working Group had estimated EU-15 beef production to drop by 1.6%.

Next year, beef production is likely to fall by a further 0.7% to around 7.06 million tonnes. This year, beef production declined 0.2% in France, and 1.6% in Germany. In 2010, French beef production will further decrease by 2.5%, while in Germany by 0.4%.

Spanish beef production this year dropped by 12.6%, while Belgium and Luxembourg saw a decline of 4.7% and Ireland by 4.6%. In 2010, beef production in Spain is expected to increase 1.6%, Ireland by 1.9%, Finland by 1.2% and Italy by 0.5%, which should partly offset the fall in production in other EU countries.

Total beef production in all 27 EU countries next year will amount to 7.9 million tonnes, against the previous forecast of eight million tonnes in 2009. In 2010, beef production will fall in Poland by 6.6%, after strong growth of 6.2% in the current year.