Analysis of the Dutch Agriculture

Analysis of the Dutch Agriculture

Impact of the EU policies

Course: Block 3 - EU module

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Introduction

This essay is the finalization of the European Module in the IMBA curriculum at Nyenrode Business Universiteit. It discusses the influence of the European Union (EU) policies on an industry. For this essay, the investigated industry is that of the Dutch agriculture. It starts with an overview of the industry and the connection with EU policies, followed by an analysis and an anticipation of the future of the industry. The essay finishes with a conclusion.

Agricultural industry

Overview

In 2005, the total added value of the agriculture industry to the Dutch economy was in total €41.9 billion, or 9.4% of the national total added value. Compared to the total added value of the European industry, the Dutch agriculture industry has a market share of around 7%. The industry provides labor positions for approximately 665.000 people. The total industry can be divided into vegetable and animal products and agricultural services. These segments have a relative market share of 50%, 42% and 8%, The figure below shows a more detailed division of the different segments.

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Figure 1 – Segmentation of the Dutch agriculture (adapted from LEI Wageningen[2]) |

The industry is characterized by its large export share, viz. the Dutch agricultural industry is the largest net exporter in the European industry and even in the world. Although the industry is still relatively large, it is losing market share in a number of segments, viz. vegetables (to Spain), pork (to Denmark) and poultry and eggs (to Germany, Italy and France. In the segments of floriculture and fruit, which are historical strongholds, the market share in the European Union has remained stable.

History

Over the last decades, the trend in the Dutch agriculture shows an increase of scale, and a decrease in number of farms. To illustrate this, between...