Agricultural prices in the European Union have fallen significantly in the first quarter of 2024. This means that agricultural prices are again approaching the levels before the outbreak of the Russian war against Ukraine. This decline is seen as a positive sign for the stability of the agricultural market.
European figures from Eurostat show that the Netherlands lags far behind other EU countries in the field of organic agriculture. Although the Netherlands says it wants to stimulate this nature-friendly form of food production, there is hardly any growth there. In the Netherlands, only about 4 percent of agricultural land is organic.
There are both advantages and disadvantages to organic farming for the climate. By not using artificial fertilizer, emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide are significantly lower. But due to additional mechanical weed control, CO2 emissions are higher again. More expensive gas and fertilizer leads to less purchase and use
The new figures from Eurostat also show that the European boycott against the import of Russian gas from 2022 led to significantly higher gas prices and therefore also to much more expensive fertilizer. In that year, significantly fewer mineral fertilizers were used in European agriculture.
There was a decrease of more than ten percent, bringing the total use to 9.8 million tons. The largest decline was in phosphate fertilizers, which decreased by 17.9%. For phosphate fertilizers, France, Spain, Italy and Romania were the largest consumers, together accounting for about half of the EU total.
A similar trend was observed in the Netherlands. The Dutch agricultural sector experienced a significant decrease in the use of both nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers in 2022. This was driven not only by rising prices, but also by stricter environmental regulations and an increasing focus on sustainability.