Ismea, production costs in agriculture up by 18.4% in the first quarter of 2022

Agricultural costs have soared by more than 18% in just three months, after closing 2021 with a 6% increase. This is highlighted by Ismea which, for some time, has been monitoring the impact of the international price crisis on individual items of expenditure in the national primary sector and which, in the next few days, will make the report available: “The current production costs of agriculture: short and long-term dynamics, effects of cost increases and prospects for companies in the supply chain “. For the aggregate of vegetable crops, where wages, energy products, fertilizers and seeds weigh above all, in the first quarter 2022 there was an increase in costs incurred by farmers of 20.4% on an annual basis (after + 5 , 7% in 2021). The increases, driven by the record increases in energy (+ 50.6%) and fertilizers (+ 36.2%), have affected all sectors, albeit with different intensity depending on the combination of production factors, resulting more accentuated in the case of industrial crops, oilseeds and cereal crops, even if the simultaneous increase in selling prices has protected, at least until now, the margins. For animal husbandry, in the first quarter of 2022, livestock disbursements increased by 16.6% on an annual basis, registering a further boost after + 6.4% in 2021, reflecting the increases in the prices of farm animals. (+ 9.8%) and feed (+ 21%) as well as energy products (+ 61.5%). In this case, the dynamics of sales prices have shown that they are not always able to absorb the higher costs, exposing farmers to the erosion of margins. Among the various sectors, poultry, eggs and dairy cattle are the sectors most affected by the increases in production costs, with the former, however, in some way benefiting from the high level of vertical integration. But the current price crisis is affecting all the links of the agri-food chain, from primary production to industrial transformation to final consumption, taking the form of an event of extraordinary significance, explain from Ismea. In order to investigate the impacts on the entire chain of price increases and supply difficulties that companies are facing, Ismea conducted a survey on a sample of 795 companies in the primary sector and 586 companies of first and second food processing, on the occasion the usual quarterly survey of the climate of confidence in the two panels. The most evident result is a sharp decline in operator confidence, with a more marked pessimism on the part of farms than industries and, in agriculture, a more pronounced deterioration in confidence in livestock enterprises, concludes Ismea.