Agricultural output prices across the EU fell by 2.9% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the same period last year.
The drop was slightly steeper than in the final quarter of 2025, when output prices declined by 1.7%, Eurostat reported on Thursday.
Prices for agricultural inputs — goods and services used up in farming such as energy, fertilisers and animal feed, but excluding investment items — changed little, edging down by 0.4% year on year in the first three months of 2026.
Output prices fell in 19 EU countries over the period, with the biggest declines recorded in Belgium (-12.9%), Germany (-11.0%) and Lithuania (-10.8%).
Prices rose in eight member states, led by Malta (+14.8%), Croatia (+8.5%) and Finland (+5.5%).
Inputs broadly stable, but with sharp national differences
Input prices not related to investment fell in 14 countries, with the sharpest decreases in Germany (-3.8%), the Netherlands (-3.4%), and Cyprus and Portugal (both -3.1%), Eurostat said.
In the other 13 countries, input prices increased, most notably in Lithuania (+16.8%), Romania (+5.0%) and Ireland (+3.6%).
Across the EU, milk prices were down 15.5% and cereal prices fell 11.7% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier.
Among inputs, fertilisers and soil improvers rose by 6.6% while feedingstuffs fell by 4.9% and energy slipped by 0.6%.
