Main indicators on the formation of values in food chains[Principaux indicateurs sur la formation de la valeur dans les filières alimentaires]

The Food Price and Margin Training Observatory develops and publishes indicators that are discussed and validated by an inter-professional steering committee. The decomposition of the «food euro» into value added shows the modest weight of the remuneration of the factors of production in agriculture in the amount of food expenditure. Price ratios, and therefore the market structures and organizations from which its result, obviously regulate this «sharing» of value, which can be judged unfavourable to agriculture. But the low share of agriculture is also a reflection of food consumption that uses imports, industrial processes and services, with jobs, capital and related earnings: the «margins of intermediaries» sometimes denounced, are wages (for 60%), therefore jobs (2.2 million) and gross operating surpluses (40%). Low farm incomes are evident in many sectors. In addition to structural fragilities, the volatility of agricultural prices has been added. The upward impact of this volatility is often dampened by industrial approval and/or (depending on the sector, the products, the periods) distributor, in a context of sluggish food consumption and "price wars" between distributors. Conversely, when agricultural prices fall sharply, they generally appear to be only partially passed on, with the result that approval improves its results.