New figures released by the French agricultural statistics agency Agreste show a decline in trade with the UK, but a rise in vegetable production.

According to Agreste, vegetable output rose in France during 2011, boosted by rising output of peas, sweetcorn and onions.

According to the agency, growers in France faced a difficult year, hampered by generally low prices. National production of fresh vegetables reached 5.6 million tonnes in the year, up by 1.5 per cent on 2010, helped by significant year-on-year surges in sweetcorn (+32 per cent ), peas (+26 per cent) and onions (+34 per cent).

However, salad growers in particular faced prices below the long-term average for tomatoes, cucumbers and leafy salads. France was a net importer of tomatoes (304,000 tonnes in 2011, valued at €117m). The 2011 volume of imported courgettes, melons, sweet peppers, green salad and carrots topped 100mt, Agreste reports.

After a couple of slow years, cauliflowers marked a 13 per cent year-on-year increase in volumes, while France’s biggest vegetable export volumes are in tomatoes, ahead of cauliflowers and carrots. Melons, however, have suffered drops in export sales over the past two years.

Last year, France’s fresh produce trade with the UK slipped back with a decline in sales to the UK of nine per cent year on year to €100m. Meanwhile, the deficit with Spain closed to €586m, as did the trade gaps with Morocco (€413m) and the Netherlands (€49m). In 2011, France was a net exporter of fresh produce to Germany (€248m) and Italy (€32m).

French tomato growers have faced rising long-term volumes of imports, now running at over 500,000t a year (up by more than 25 per cent over 10 years) while provisional 2011 import values show a 20 per cent rise over the same period. Agreste also noted that in the wake of the 2011 E. coli crisis, demand for salad products weakened, generating a 15 per cent year-on-year drop in prices across the staple lines in the category.

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