According to the latest forecasts from the Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics, food exports from Poland will reach their highest-ever value this year: 16.3 billion euros. This is over 1 billion euros more than last year.
The value of agrifood products sold abroad, expressed in euros, grew by 190 percent in 2004-2011. The share of exports in the total value of agrifood sales is also growing. When Poland was joining the European Union in 2004, this share was 18 percent; it has since increased to 40 percent.
The Polish Agriculture Ministry estimates that the value of exports grew by almost 11 percent in the first six months of 2012. Despite growing food prices around the world, Polish agrifood goods are still relatively inexpensive and therefore find willing buyers in western Europe. Although the crisis has made consumers in those markets more frugal.
The data of the Central Statistical Office (GUS) show that in the first three quarters of this year, production of agrifood goods (accounting for 16 percent of total industrial production sold) was 6.5 percent higher than in January-September 2011 when 4.6 percent growth was reported.
Sales increased in all product groups. Poland is one of Europe’s biggest food producers of apples, mushrooms, potatoes, rye, rapeseed and sugar beets.
