Europe

Italy, Spain and Poland are reshaping the bloc’s food export balance

French farmers block roads in Saone-et-Loire as national agriculture protests roll on Farmers block major roads as part of ongoing nationwide agricultural protests. (Photo by Mathieu Prudhomme/Anadolu via Getty Images) France, long the bloc’s agricultural powerhouse, saw its agri-food trade surplus fall last year, hit by reliance on exports to non-EU markets and difficulties meeting domestic demand, while other EU countries are gaining ground.

Thanks to its wines, cereals, and dairy products, France is the agricultural étoile – or star – of Europe. In 2024, the country’s value of production stood at €88.3 billion, the highest in the EU ahead of Germany (€75.5 billion), Italy (€70.2 billion), and Spain (€68.7 billion).

Yet the trade balance is slipping. In 2025, Paris recorded its weakest agri-food trade performance in a quarter of a century, with the lowest surplus in 25 years.

This is not just a short-term crisis, but the result of both external shocks and deeper structural problems.

Reliance on non-EU markets

For decades, France’s agri-food surplus was driven by high value-added exports like wine and spirits, sold both within the EU and to third countries.

But that balance has shifted. “In recent years, France has become a net importer on the European market, and most of its surplus now comes mainly from third countries,” explains Sébastien Abis, a food geopolitics researcher at the French Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS).

This growing dependence left France particularly vulnerable when trade tensions emerged over the summer.

In July and August, France’s two main export markets for wine and spirits – the US and China – imposed steep tariffs: 15% on EU wine and spirits in the US, and up to 34.9% on spirits in China.

The impact was immediate: wine exports dropped by 8% in value, and spirits plummeted by as much as 25%.

France also faced a sharp decline in cereal exports, hit by poor 2024 harvests and the loss of key wheat buyer Algeria amid geopolitical tensions.

For Abis, the problem was partly strategic overconfidence. “We overestimated our ability to retain certain clients,” he says.

France’s agri-food trade surplus slumps to lowest level in decades

Others did better

Other EU countries have managed challenges better by focusing on high-quality local products or efficient technology, and by relying more heavily on intra-EU trade, explains Yari Vecchio of the University of Bologna.

Spain, for example, has been consolidating its position as the EU’s fourth-largest exporter, thanks to “a clear cost-competitiveness advantage” in key products such as fruits, olive oil, and pork, Vecchio says.

Also in Eastern Europe, competitors have grown rapidly. Poland, in particular, has expanded its production and export capacity by combining “strong cost efficiency with an increasingly integrated agri-food industrial chain,” the researcher notes.

But the clearest example is Italy, which competes on quality and branding rather than price, using geographical indications, according to Vecchio. The country achieved record exports of around €73 billion in agri-food products in 2025, up 5% from the same period in 2024.

Italian success has also been driven by coordinated marketing, says Marine Raffray, an agricultural economist at the French Chambers of Agriculture. “Italians hunt in packs when exporting; they focus on the national brand rather than regional specialisations. This is far less visible in France.”

Missed demand

France also suffered from a certain degree of elitism.

“France missed a European market that is not exclusively high-end,” Abis explains.

Relying on a strong and codified tradition, it failed to adapt to changing consumer demand, as they increasingly crave cheaper, more convenient products and no longer want to spend hours in the kitchen cooking a boeuf bourguignon.

In fruit and vegetables, the country is now running a deficit. Consumption is shifting away from fresh products towards processed ones. “We consume more juice, canned fruit, and compote. To produce these, we need industrial facilities that we do not have in sufficient quantity,” says Raffray.

But building factories takes time and requires long-term planning, something France has struggled with, says Burkhard Schaer, director of the French-German agriculture research agency ECOZEPT. “There is no visibility in France’s conventional agriculture,” he says, referring to shifting agricultural policies in past years, from the Green Deal’s environmental ambitions to the more recent softening of regulations for farmers.

With an ageing workforce, “no measures are in place to ensure generational renewal,” Schaer adds. Productivity gains no longer fully compensate the many farmers who are leaving the sector, particularly in livestock farming.

Equipment is also ageing. Half of France’s agri-food factories have not been modernised since the early 2000s, Abis says.

France’s shortfall has reshaped the single market. The country is now turning into a destination market for neighbouring partners.

Former French President Charles de Gaulle, who famously once asked, “How can you govern a country with 258 varieties of cheese?”, would be dismayed to see that even France’s iconic cheese sector is feeling the strain.

“We are importing more industrial-type cheese from the Netherlands to meet the growing demand for ‘ingredient cheese’ used in processed foods,” Raffray says.

Not all decline

Abis cautions against alarmism. “For half a century, France’s trade balance showed a surplus. Today it is reduced, but we are not yet in deficit,” he notes, pointing to Germany’s negative agricultural trade balance.

The crisis is also being strengthened by cyclical factors. A weaker euro against the dollar has hurt competitiveness, Raffray explains.

Rising commodity prices, particularly cocoa – which surged around 30% after weather-related disruptions – have also weighed heavily on the trade balance. Without these shocks, Abis argues, France’s agri-food trade performance would have been considerably better.