Statistics

2007 Summary

Market value of crop protection products increases in 2007…

• The value of sales in the European crop protection sector increased in 2007, with nominal sales in the EU-15 increasing by 7.3%. In real terms, sales increased by 4.1%, taking into account Eurozone inflation of 3.1% in December 2007. Taking into account all European data available, nominal sales increased by 7.7% in 2007.
• Comparing with 2002, 2007 sales were 1.6% higher in nominal terms than five years ago. However, this equates to a decrease of 9.2% in real term sales in the EU-15.
• The main influence on the EU-15 market came from increases in sales in France (+5.8%), Germany (+10.9%) and the UK (+12.3%).
• Outside the EU-15 sales also progressed with the biggest increases being seen in Poland (+19.2%) and the Czech Republic (+20.3%).
• The increase in the value of the market was seen across all the different crop protection categories in 2007. Insecticide sales saw the greatest increase, recording a 12.5% increase in sales, with herbicide sales increasing by 7.9% and fungicide sales increasing by 6.4%.
• The increase in insecticide sales was seen mainly in northern Europe, in particular in Germany where sales increased by 84.9%. Sales in most of southern Europe was stable, apart from Spain that saw a 8.3% progression in sales.
• The increase in herbicide sales was mainly driven by France (+6.5%), UK (+19.3%) Poland (+21.1%) and the Czech Republic (+19.3%).
• The smaller increase in fungicide sales was largely driven by sales increases in the Netherlands (+17.4%), Italy (+6.9%) and France (+4.7%).

…and volume also increases

• The volume of products used in the EU-15 also increased in 2007. Total volume increased by 18,743 tonnes, or 73.4%, up to 270,714 tonnes. The increase in volumes sold was due in particular to a 11.6% increase in herbicide volumes.

Number employed in the sector slightly decreases

• Looking at the data for the EU-15 and Switzerland, staff numbers stand at a total of nearly 23,800 employees – having reduced by over 1000 compared to 2006. Of the people employed in the crop protection sector, 11,000 are involved in production and logistics, nearly 5,300 in sales & marketing and nearly 4,700 in technical support, including the research and development of the crop protection products in use.