Prices for agricultural products such as milk, grain and eggs continued to fall in November. This also tends to reduce the burden on consumers.
The prices that farmers receive for their produce continued to fall in November. The Federal Statistical Office said the products cost eleven percent less year-on-year. The significant decline is primarily due to the extremely high price level in the inflationary year of 2022. Since then, the important product groups milk and grain have become significantly cheaper again. Compared to October, prices for all agricultural products remained stable with an increase of 0.1 percent.
Milk is cheaper, vegetables are more expensive
Year-on-year, prices for animal products fell by 12.3 percent. Milk was 29.1 percent cheaper than in November 2022, and the price of eggs fell by 25.2 percent. Pork, on the other hand, cost 10.3 percent more.
Vegetable products cost an average of 8.8 percent less. Grain prices fell particularly sharply, falling by 33.4 percent. For fruit, vegetables and potatoes, on the other hand, producers received more than in November 2022. Prices for apples were 24.1 percent higher, for cauliflower 36.7 percent and for tomatoes 18.3 percent. Table potatoes were 18.4 percent more expensive.
Relief for consumers?
The statistics only refer to the price development in the first economic stage, i.e. when selling from the producer to a first intermediary. These prices also have an impact on consumer prices, although these are not recorded precisely.
Consumer prices in supermarkets are the result of supply relationships between producers and trading companies. While the farmers’ association criticizes the bargaining power of buyers, there are also demands from politicians to regulate the prices of agricultural products more closely in the interests of the farmers. Most recently, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Agriculture Minister Till Backhaus (SPD) called for higher prices for agricultural products such as milk and for the power of retail chains to be limited through antitrust law.