Options, challenges and potentials of poultry meat: an empirical investigation on european consumers

Abstract

Agricultural market developments have attracted considerable attention recently, due to increasing consumer food prices and sharp short term price fluctuations of agricultural commodity prices. This medium term outlook provides a projection for major EU agricultural commodity markets and agricultural income until the year 2022, based on a set of coherent assumptions. Under these assumptions, agricultural commodity prices are expected to stay firm over the medium term, supported by factors such as the growth in global food demand, the development of the biofuel sector and a prolongation of the long-term decline in food crop productivity growth. EU commodity markets are projected to remain balanced on average over the outlook period, without the need for market intervention. Prospects for agricultural income grow at EU level during the outlook period, resulting from continuing decline in labor input rather than from income increases at sector level (European Commission, 2012). The article concentrates on the prospects for European meat market trends and on results of the primary quantitative research which was carried out in four countries EU member state.