Agriculture is an important industry for all EU countries and they all receive EU funding through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). These funds directly support farmers through the European Agricultural and Rural Guarantee Fund, climate impact and natural resource management through the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
EU agriculture produces a rich variety of food products, from cereals to milk. The EU has legislation to ensure that food produced and sold in the EU is safe to eat.
The EU's Farm to Fork Strategy, announced in 2020, aims to fundamentally change farming and ensure that food is produced more sustainably. MEPs want to reduce the use of pesticides to better protect pollinators and biodiversity, end the use of cages in animal farming and increase the use of land for organic farming by 2030.
Naturally, against the backdrop of an ever-growing population, daily economic and physical wars, lobbying and unrelenting corruption, it is difficult to be convinced of the motivation behind this strategy, but at the moment it is a fact with which everyone is synchronizing their actions.
According to European statistics, the agricultural industry supports around 9,476,600 jobs and 3,769,850 jobs in food production and represents 1.3% of the EU's gross domestic product in 2020.
Romania had the most people employed in agriculture in 2019, while Germany had the most people employed in food production in 2018.
For every euro spent, the agricultural sector generated an additional €0.76 for the EU economy. Gross value added from agriculture – the difference between the value of everything produced by the EU's primary agricultural sector and the price of services and goods used in the production process – was €178.4 billion in 2020.
EU agriculture produces a rich variety of food products, from cereals to milk. The EU has legislation to ensure that food produced and sold in the EU is safe to eat.
The EU's Farm to Fork Strategy, announced in 2020, aims to fundamentally change farming and ensure that food is produced more sustainably. MEPs want to reduce the use of pesticides to better protect pollinators and biodiversity, end the use of cages in animal farming and increase the use of land for organic farming by 2030.
Naturally, against the backdrop of an ever-growing population, daily economic and physical wars, lobbying and unrelenting corruption, it is difficult to be convinced of the motivation behind this strategy, but at the moment it is a fact with which everyone is synchronizing their actions.
According to European statistics, the agricultural industry supports around 9,476,600 jobs and 3,769,850 jobs in food production and represents 1.3% of the EU's gross domestic product in 2020.
Romania had the most people employed in agriculture in 2019, while Germany had the most people employed in food production in 2018.
For every euro spent, the agricultural sector generated an additional €0.76 for the EU economy. Gross value added from agriculture – the difference between the value of everything produced by the EU's primary agricultural sector and the price of services and goods used in the production process – was €178.4 billion in 2020.
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