The Protein Sovereignty Index

Bloc assessment

European Union

We assess the European Union as Resilient (70.1). The bloc produces more meat and dairy than it eats, runs a EUR 63.6 billion agri-food trade surplus and supplies 113.6 grams of protein per person per day, yet the pig and poultry systems that generate that surplus are fed on imported concentrate: about 75 per cent of high-protein feed and roughly 96 per cent of soybean meal originate outside the EU, with Brazil and Argentina together supplying 87 per cent of imported soya meal.[6][7][9]

The real vulnerability sits upstream rather than at the border: in August 2022 the EU lost 70 per cent of its ammonia capacity in a single quarter.[20]

On the outcome checks that close the assessment, the bloc passes comfortably at population level on the Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD) measure the access pillar is scored on, 8.2 per cent unable to afford a healthy diet, population-weighted across member states for 2024, though Hungary alone stands at 30.0 per cent, and the euro's status as a reserve currency gives the EU crisis purchasing power its thin foreign-exchange reserves alone would not suggest.[40][35]

Covers: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden

The protein system

Per-capita protein supply was 113.6 g per day in 2023, from 81.3 g in Slovakia to 136.9 g in Ireland.[27] In 2024 the EU produced 21.1 million tonnes of pigmeat, 14.1 million tonnes of poultry meat, 6.6 million tonnes of beef and veal and 161.8 million tonnes of raw milk.[14][16] On USDA balance data for 2025, self-sufficiency was about 115 per cent for pigmeat, 109 per cent for chicken meat and 102 per cent for beef, with cows' milk forecast at 150.0 million tonnes in 2026.[25][26] Agri-food exports reached EUR 235.4 billion against EUR 171.8 billion of imports.[28] The machinery is feed-intensive: EU farm animals eat roughly 640 million tonnes of feed a year, 395 million tonnes of it roughage, and livestock absorbs 61 per cent of internal cereal use in a sector turning over EUR 400 billion across 4 million farms.[3][6]

Two categories are in deficit. Seafood production was 3.90 million tonnes live weight in 2023 against 8.48 million tonnes of imports, a self-sufficiency rate of 38.1 per cent; for salmon, Alaska pollock, shrimp and cod, 32 per cent of consumption, self-sufficiency averaged 4 per cent.[11] Plant protein is the other: EU arable crops supplied 64 million tonnes of crude protein in 2023/24 against imports equivalent to 19 million tonnes, giving 76 per cent autonomy.[1][9][10] Within that the EU is fully self-sufficient in roughage, around 90 per cent in feed cereals, 75 per cent in rapeseed meal and about 3 per cent in soybean meal.[6][9] The Commission adopted its first Livestock Strategy and a Protein Action Plan on 7 July 2026, targeting a rise in the EU-sourced share of feed oilseeds and protein crops from around 25 to 35 per cent by 2035; that is the plan's only quantified commitment and we found no funding attached.[2][4]

Durable domestic capacity: 76

Quantitative score 79, adjusted down 3 points

On production divided by domestic supply the EU ranks among the strongest entities in the index, exporting every major meat category, dairy and cereals at a protein supply roughly double adult requirement.[14][16][27] The indicators put the pillar at 79: Europe has less land per head, a weaker fisheries position and a southern tier where water is already binding. We deduct 3 points for durability, taking the pillar to 76. Only 28 per cent of assessed EU marine stocks (76 of 270) meet both good-status criteria: 40.6 per cent in the North-East Atlantic and Baltic, but 8.6 per cent in the Mediterranean and Black Seas, where 64.8 per cent fail both.[12][32] Water scarcity affected 28 per cent of EU land area and 32 per cent of the population in 2023, and the affected area has not shrunk despite a 14 per cent fall in abstraction since 2000.[13] Cereal yield growth is projected at 0.1 per cent a year to 2035, with beef, pigmeat and sheep meat all declining, so the ratio is held up partly by falling domestic demand rather than by a growing production base.[5]

Resource headroom: 58

Quantitative score 54, adjusted up 4 points

There is almost no room to expand. Cereal area falls to 49.5 million hectares by 2035 and arable area by 0.4 per cent, while pasture declines with ruminant numbers; oilseed and pulse area grows only 2 per cent.[5] The mix is feed-intensive, pigmeat at 48 per cent of meat output and poultry 31 per cent.[14] Much of the EU's effective headroom sits abroad: 25.5 million tonnes of soy in soybean-meal equivalent was imported in 2023, several million hectares of South American cropland working on Europe's behalf.[6] Aquaculture, the usual route to cheap marine protein, is small at 1.04 million tonnes against 2.12 million tonnes of farmed imports and itself needs imported fishmeal.[6][11]

We add +4 because feed-conversion metrics understate Europe. Roughage, mostly grass, supplies 41 per cent of EU feed protein in protein-equivalent terms and the EU is fully self-sufficient in it.[6][31] A large part of the system runs on biomass humans cannot eat, on land that often cannot be cropped: standing headroom that indicators built on crop calories fed to livestock do not see.

Checked against irrigation-equipped share of arable land, agricultural credit orientation and documented cropland change, that credit does not rest on unmobilisable resource. Land equipped for irrigation covers a rising 20.2 per cent of EU arable land in 2024, up from 16.8 per cent in 2000, even as the arable base itself contracted; Eurostat's own farm-survey measure, on the larger utilised-agricultural-area denominator, puts irrigated land at 6.5 per cent and irrigable at 9.6 per cent in 2023, concentrated in Italy, Spain and France and running highest as a share of national land in Malta and Greece, the water-stressed members already flagged above.[43][45] Agricultural credit is not the constraint either. FAOSTAT's agriculture orientation index for credit, where a computable series exists for 15 of the bloc's 27 members, three-quarters of its population, comes out at a population-weighted 2.99 against a parity value of 1.00, carried by Ireland (5.54), Belgium (5.11), France (4.31) and Germany (3.77); twelve members, including Poland, the Netherlands and Romania, either report no agriculture-specific breakdown or, in the Netherlands' case, no series at all.[44] What is genuinely constrained is land: arable area fell 11.5 per cent and cropland 10.8 per cent between 2000 and 2024, 15.6 and 15.0 per cent on a per-person basis, a real and already-priced contraction rather than an unbanked resource.[43][46] The +4 stands because the constraint is exhausted land, not idle capital.

Import exposure: 74

Quantitative score 70, adjusted up 4 points

On final protein the EU imports little, and its agri-food imports are spread across the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Brazil and a long tail.[28] Poultry is the one growing meat import, 743,000 tonnes in 2025 rising to a projected 955,000 by 2035.[5][25] The exposure is concentration: of 11.4 million tonnes of soya meal imported in July to December 2025/26, Brazil supplied 52 per cent, Argentina 35 per cent and Ukraine 5 per cent, and across all oilmeals the two accounted for 80 per cent of 13.0 million tonnes.[7] On those shares the implied Herfindahl-Hirschman index for soya meal is around 0.40, among the most concentrated dependencies in this index. Soya beans are better spread: 46 per cent United States, 32 per cent Brazil, 11 per cent Canada, 10 per cent Ukraine.[7]

We add +4 for import geography, which concentration indices do not register. These flows cross the Atlantic, transit none of the world's major maritime chokepoints, and land across many deep-water gateways inside a single market that redistributes overland. When the Black Sea closed in 2022, Ukrainian maize, then 52 per cent of EU maize imports, was rerouted through solidarity lanes rather than lost.[21]

Upstream dependence: 49

Quantitative score 43, adjusted up 6 points

This is the EU's structural weakness and the reason it sits at the bottom of its band. Some 23 to 24 per cent of EU feed protein is imported, which understates the problem: 75 per cent of high-protein feed materials and about 96 per cent of soybean meal are imported, with 13.4 million tonnes of soya bean and soya meal protein brought in during 2024/25.[1][5][8] Feed is up to 50 per cent of the farm-gate value of poultry and 55 per cent for pigs, so a feed shock is a margin shock immediately.[6] As of 2021 the EU imported 85 per cent of its potash consumption, 64 per cent of those imports from Russia and Belarus, and 68 per cent of its phosphate, with Morocco at 28 per cent and Russia 23 per cent.[20] Nitrogen import dependence rose from 28 per cent in 2019 to 45 per cent in 2022, and in 2024 the bloc imported 2.0 million tonnes of ammonia and 5.9 million tonnes of urea.[22][24] Behind nitrogen sits gas: 90.0 per cent of EU natural gas was imported in 2023, and gas was up to 90 per cent of ammonia variable cost in summer 2022, when 70 per cent of capacity shut and utilisation fell to about 50 per cent.[18][20] Nitrogen consumption rebounded 5.8 per cent to 8.9 million tonnes of nutrient in 2024, still 15.8 per cent below the 2017 peak.[17]

We add +6 for the inputs Europe controls. The EU is a net exporter of breeding genetics and of veterinary and crop-protection products, hosting most of the world's poultry and pig breeding companies, and retains an ammonia and NPK industry that supplied over 90 per cent of EU nitrogen fertiliser consumption before 2022.[20] Owning the genetics and medicine layer partly substitutes for owning the feed layer, and no feed or fertiliser indicator registers it.

Access and affordability: 76

Quantitative score 80, adjusted down 4 points

This pillar is scored on the World Bank/FAO Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD) series. No official EU-27 CoAHD aggregate is published, so we computed a population-weighted bloc figure from the 27 national CoAHD readings for 2024: 8.2 per cent, against a simple unweighted average of 9.6 per cent, both inside a low unaffordability range.[40][41] The population-weighted cost of a healthy diet was Int$3.93 (PPP) per person per day.[42] Eurostat's EU-SILC measure of inability to afford a meal with meat, chicken, fish or a vegetarian equivalent every second day, retained here as a supporting indicator because it is genuinely protein-relevant, stood at 8.5 per cent for the EU-27 in 2025, unchanged from 2024 and down from 9.5 per cent in 2023, at a comparably low level.[33] Prevalence of undernourishment for Europe sits below the FAO's 2.5 per cent reporting floor and has done every year since 2000.[34] No UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Joint Malnutrition Estimate exists for the EU as a bloc or most member states;[39] the stunting component is scored on the absence of a documented burden in EU populations.

Price volatility has been material and is not fully behind the bloc. EU-27 food price inflation ran between 0.8 and 4.1 per cent across 2019 to 2021, peaked at 16.9 per cent in March 2023 as the Ukraine and gas shocks passed through to shelves, and eased to 2.9 per cent by January 2025. It then ran back up through a 2.9 to 4.0 per cent range over the rest of that year, standing at 3.1 per cent in December 2025, the latest month Eurostat publishes.[38] Physical access is generally strong on the single market's dense logistics, with the exceptions already identified elsewhere in this assessment: acute water scarcity in Cyprus and Malta, and structurally higher supply costs across the EU's island and outermost regions.[13] At 8.2 per cent, the bloc sits in the upper, worse part of that low-unaffordability range, putting the pillar at 80.

The population-weighted figure conceals a real divide. Hungary's CoAHD reading is 30.0 per cent of its population and Slovakia's 27.7 per cent, two bands below the bloc figure; Greece (23.8 per cent), Bulgaria (23.1), Romania (20.7), Latvia (17.3), Portugal (14.8), Lithuania (13.3), Croatia (12.9) and Estonia (10.2) sit one band worse than the bloc average.[40] Together these nine members hold around 15 per cent of the bloc's population. We deduct 4 points for that divergence, taking the pillar to 76. The worst-affected members are two bands down rather than three, and no single member drives the adjustment on its own.

Shock endurance: 78

Quantitative score 74, adjusted up 4 points

Because the bloc exports the protein it eats, a trade shutdown redirects supply inward rather than cutting it off, and the EUR 386.6 billion CAP for 2021 to 2027 can underwrite farm income through a price shock.[29] Twenty-seven member states provide redundancy no single country holds: compound feed output spans Spain at 27.5 million tonnes, Germany 21.5, France 19.4, Italy 14.9, the Netherlands 13.8 and Poland 11.5.[6] The European Food Security Crisis preparedness and response Mechanism has run since 9 March 2022.[21]

The weaknesses are real. There is no published bloc-level strategic protein or cereal reserve, so on reserve metrics the EU scores badly, and soya meal logistics are just-in-time. Animal disease is becoming structural: the Commission now expects highly pathogenic avian influenza to circulate year-round rather than seasonally.[5] The 2022 shock was also expensive, with urea up 200 per cent and potash 141 per cent against the 2016 to 2020 average.[20]

We add +4 for substitution slack, which stock-to-use ratios miss. With livestock absorbing 61 per cent of internal cereal use and protein supply at 113.6 g per day, a severe concentrate-feed shock is absorbable by moving cereals from feed to food and contracting monogastric herds rather than by rationing protein.[6][27] The record supports this: the EU took simultaneous gas, fertiliser and Black Sea shocks, lost most of its ammonia output and had no physical shortage, while permitting production on fallow land and mobilising EUR 500 million in farm support within weeks.[21]

Crisis purchasing power is the strongest component of this pillar's score. EU foreign-exchange reserves cover 3.35 months of imports, barely above the three-month line usually treated as adequate for an importing economy, and that ratio is flattered by intra-EU trade sitting in its denominator.[35] Reserves are the wrong lens here. The euro is a global reserve currency, so the EU buys through a disruption in a currency it issues rather than one it must stockpile, and behind it sit deep, liquid sovereign bond markets, an EU-27 government debt-to-GDP ratio of 81.7 per cent and a 2025 deficit of 3.1 per cent of GDP, both manageable by international standards, and the demonstrated ability to raise EUR 806.9 billion jointly through NextGenerationEU, of which up to EUR 637 billion is to be raised by the end of 2026 against repayment running to 2058.[36][37] That financial firepower, rather than any reserve stockpile, is what the purchasing-power component contributes to this score.

Trajectory

The Protein Action Plan will not shift this outlook much. Lifting the EU-sourced share of feed oilseeds and protein crops to 35 per cent by 2035 still leaves two-thirds of high-protein feed imported, and the Commission's own baseline has oilseed and pulse production rising 2.5 per cent over the decade with net oilseed imports falling 5.9 per cent.[1][2][5] Fertiliser policy is moving towards costly independence: duties on Russian and Belarusian nitrogen fertilisers reach roughly 100 per cent ad valorem equivalent by 2028, while the Council suspended tariffs on certain other fertilisers for a year on 22 May 2026 to hold prices down.[5][23] Reduced dependence bought with permanently higher input costs improves the upstream pillar and worsens the economics of the sector it protects.

Enlargement is the larger lever. The Commission's own scenario has Ukrainian accession lifting plant protein autonomy from 76 to 86 per cent on the strength of Ukraine's 13.5 million tonnes of annual plant protein, and Ukraine already supplies 8 per cent of EU oilmeal imports and 10 per cent of soya beans.[1][7] On a ten-year view, EU protein sovereignty is more likely to be decided in Kyiv than in CAP protein-crop payments.

The internal trend runs the other way. Beef, pigmeat and sheep meat output all fall to 2035, pigmeat by 1.54 million tonnes, under national nitrogen and greenhouse-gas rules in Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Denmark.[5] Production falling alongside consumption keeps the self-sufficiency ratio intact while shrinking the absolute buffer and shifting the mix towards poultry, the most feed-intensive meat. Europe is on course to be no less self-sufficient in animal protein and no less dependent on South American soya meal to produce it.

Country notes

Unless flagged, figures are protein supply,[27] compound feed,[6] seafood consumption,[11] crop and livestock output,[14][15] oilmeal import shares,[7] water scarcity[13] and policy.[5]

Austria. 108.5 g per day, 1.73 Mt of compound feed; grassland dairy and beef leave it less soya-exposed than the pig states.

Belgium. 120.3 g per day, 6.14 Mt of compound feed, 3.02 Mt for pigs. Antwerp and Ghent are crush gateways, so it is exposed twice over; pig feed fell 7.0 per cent in 2023.

Bulgaria. 86.5 g per day, among the lowest, and 7.6 kg of seafood. Compound feed grew 7.6 per cent to 1.34 Mt in 2023, the fastest in the EU; sunflower output eases its meal dependence.

Croatia. 115.3 g per day, 23.0 kg of seafood, 0.67 Mt of static compound feed. A net meat importer whose Adriatic aquaculture runs on imported feed fish.

Cyprus. 98.7 g per day, 28.2 kg of seafood, 0.36 Mt of compound feed with effectively all concentrate imported. With Malta, the worst water scarcity of any member state in 2023.

Czechia. 96.1 g per day and the EU's lowest seafood consumption at 5.6 kg. A cereal surplus and a pigmeat deficit: it imports the animal protein its own grain could support.

Denmark. 126.3 g per day on a pigmeat sector producing 1.7 Mt. Compound feed fell 12.2 per cent in 2023, the steepest in the EU; greenhouse-gas policy will constrain herds further.

Estonia. 112.1 g per day, 17.5 kg of seafood, 0.23 Mt of compound feed. Dairy-led and tied to Baltic fisheries, the poorest-condition EU basin outside the Mediterranean.[11]

Finland. 126.1 g per day, 17.9 kg of seafood. Climate caps arable expansion, but domestic barley, oats and rapeseed cover a high share of feed protein.

France. 53.6 Mt of cereals in 2024, 20.8 per cent of the EU, and the largest beef producer at 20.0 per cent of output. It uses the most mineral nitrogen, 1.8 Mt of nutrient,[17] and takes 12 per cent of EU soya meal.

Germany. Second cereal producer at 39.1 Mt, 4.3 Mt of pigmeat, largest cheese and butter producer,[16] 21.5 Mt of compound feed. Nitrogen use fell 39.3 per cent from 2014 to 2023, the steepest cut in the EU.[17]

Greece. 112.0 g per day, 20.3 kg of seafood, compound feed estimated at 4.0 Mt. A Mediterranean aquaculture producer on imported fishmeal facing acute seasonal water scarcity: the weakest large member on headroom.

Hungary. 93.6 g per day and 5.8 kg of seafood, the second lowest. Compound feed 3.65 Mt, half poultry; maize and sunflower surpluses help, with drought the operative risk.

Ireland. The EU's highest protein supply at 136.9 g per day and the most lopsided profile anywhere: meat self-sufficiency 233 per cent in 2024, beef 701 per cent, sheep meat 385 per cent, poultry only 72 per cent.[30] The nitrates derogation governs herd size.

Italy. 116.6 g per day, 30.4 kg of seafood, 14.9 Mt of compound feed. It took about 10 per cent of EU soya bean and soya meal imports in 2025/26, and carries Po Valley irrigation exposure.

Latvia. 110.8 g per day, 21.6 kg of seafood, 0.35 Mt of compound feed. A cereal exporter that supplies feed grain while importing concentrate protein.

Lithuania. 123.8 g per day, 20.0 kg of seafood, pig feed down 24 per cent in 2023, the steepest fall of any member state. As a rapeseed exporter it feeds the one high-protein meal in which the EU is 75 per cent self-sufficient.

Luxembourg. 122.5 g per day, 29.5 kg of seafood, compound feed estimated at 90,000 t, the EU's smallest. Grassland dairy and beef with no domestic feed processing: a pure beneficiary of single-market redundancy.

Malta. 105.8 g per day, compound feed estimated at 80,000 t, and the worst seasonal water scarcity in the EU alongside Cyprus. Negligible arable land and tuna ranching on imported feed fish make it the most import-dependent member.

Netherlands. The clearest expression of the EU model: 22 per cent of EU oilseed imports and 15 per cent of soya meal through its ports in 2025/26, and 13.8 Mt of compound feed. Nitrogen policy is shrinking the herd.

Poland. Largest poultry producer at 2.9 Mt, 20.5 per cent of EU output, and third cereal producer at 34.3 Mt. It took 15 per cent of EU soya meal; milk yields rose 46 per cent from 2014 to 2024, the fastest convergence in the bloc.

Portugal. 126.4 g per day and the EU's highest seafood consumption at 53.6 kg against a deep national fish deficit. Compound feed rose 7.7 per cent to 4.44 Mt in 2023; structurally short of cereals and feed.

Romania. Fifth cereal producer at 17.9 Mt with 2.91 Mt of compound feed, mostly poultry. Maize and sunflower surpluses but thin processing: it exports raw grain and imports higher-value protein.

Slovakia. The EU's lowest protein supply at 81.3 g per day, 10.2 kg of seafood, 0.68 Mt of compound feed, poultry output cut by avian influenza in 2023. It has the least room to absorb a price shock.

Slovenia. 101.5 g per day, 11.2 kg of seafood, 0.40 Mt of compound feed, three-fifths poultry. Small, grassland-based, dependent on neighbours' supply chains.

Spain. Largest meat producer at 7.36 Mt, largest pigmeat producer at 5.0 Mt, largest compound feed producer at 27.5 Mt, largest oilmeal importer at 17 per cent of EU soya meal, and among Europe's most water-scarce large economies. Spain is where the EU's model is most exposed: output expanding, feed imported, water base contracting.

Sweden. 112.8 g per day, 1.93 Mt of compound feed, low livestock density, high grassland share. A cereal and rapeseed surplus country, among the least feed-import-exposed in relative terms.

Country notes

Austria
Protein supply 108.5 g per person per day (2023), among the lower figures in western Europe, with grassland dairy and beef the backbone and 1.73 million tonnes of compound feed (2023). Seafood consumption is low at 11.7 kg. Vienna co-signed the December 2021 Franco-Austrian declaration that put an EU protein strategy on the agenda, and Austria's roughage-heavy mix leaves it less exposed to soya meal than the pig and poultry states.
Belgium
Protein supply 120.3 g per day and 6.14 million tonnes of compound feed (2023), of which 3.02 million tonnes for pigs. Antwerp and Ghent are among the EU's crush and feed-import gateways, so Belgium is doubly exposed: its own herd depends on imported meal and it handles other members' too. Pig feed production fell 7.0 per cent in 2023 and environmental and animal-welfare policy is actively shrinking the herd.
Bulgaria
One of the lowest protein supplies in the bloc at 86.5 g per day, and the third lowest seafood consumption at 7.6 kg (2023). Compound feed output is small at 1.34 million tonnes but grew 7.6 per cent in 2023, the fastest in the EU. As a significant sunflower producer Bulgaria is better placed than most eastern members on domestically available oilseed meal, but its livestock base is thin and processing value low.
Croatia
Protein supply 115.3 g per day and seafood consumption 23.0 kg, slightly above the EU average. Compound feed output is 0.67 million tonnes and static. Croatia is a net importer of meat with a small domestic livestock sector, and its Adriatic aquaculture (tuna ranching and seabass) depends on imported feed fish, making it a small but concentrated exposure.
Cyprus
Protein supply 98.7 g per day and high seafood consumption at 28.2 kg. Compound feed production is 0.36 million tonnes, half of it cattle feed, and effectively all concentrate is imported. Cyprus and Malta faced the most severe water scarcity of any member state in 2023, with seasonal water exploitation index values above 40 per cent, so there is no domestic route to greater protein self-sufficiency.
Czechia
Protein supply 96.1 g per day and the lowest seafood consumption in the EU at 5.6 kg (2023). Compound feed output 2.38 million tonnes. Czechia runs a cereal surplus and a pigmeat deficit, having lost much of its pig sector since accession, so it is a net importer of the animal protein its own grain could have supported.
Denmark
Protein supply 126.3 g per day, among the highest, on the back of a pigmeat sector that produced 1.7 million tonnes in 2023. Compound feed production fell 12.2 per cent in 2023, the sharpest decline in the EU, and pig feed by 18 per cent. Denmark takes about 5 to 6 per cent of EU soya meal imports despite its size, and its announced agricultural greenhouse-gas policy will constrain herd size further.
Estonia
Protein supply 112.1 g per day and seafood consumption 17.5 kg. Compound feed output is 0.23 million tonnes, one of the smallest in the EU. Dairy is the main sector. Estonia's protein position is tied to Baltic Sea fisheries and Baltic stocks are in the poorest condition of any EU sea basin outside the Mediterranean.
Finland
Protein supply 126.1 g per day and seafood consumption 17.9 kg. Compound feed 1.43 million tonnes. The northern climate caps any arable expansion, but domestic barley, oats and rapeseed cover a comparatively high share of feed protein needs, and oats area is one of the few EU crops projected to expand. Finland is a low-volume, low-exposure member.
France
The EU's agricultural anchor: 53.6 million tonnes of cereals in 2024 (20.8 per cent of EU output), the largest beef producer at 20.0 per cent of EU production, and 19.4 million tonnes of compound feed. It also consumes the most mineral nitrogen in the EU at 1.8 million tonnes of nutrient (2024) and takes 12 per cent of EU soya meal imports. Milk collection fell 4.5 per cent between 2014 and 2024, and protein supply is 116.0 g per day with high seafood consumption at 32.1 kg.
Germany
Second cereal producer at 39.1 million tonnes (2024), 4.3 million tonnes of pigmeat, the largest cheese (22.5 per cent) and butter (20.6 per cent) producer, and 21.5 million tonnes of compound feed. Nitrogen use fell 39.3 per cent between 2014 and 2023, the steepest cut in the EU, and pig feed production fell 5.8 per cent in 2023 under African swine fever and environmental pressure. Protein supply is 109.2 g per day and seafood consumption low at 12.1 kg.
Greece
Protein supply 112.0 g per day and seafood consumption 20.3 kg. Greece does not report industrial compound feed production to FEFAC, which estimates it at about 4.0 million tonnes. It is one of the EU's two large Mediterranean aquaculture producers, with seabass and seabream output that runs on imported fishmeal and fish oil, and it faces acute spring and summer water scarcity. The weakest large member on resource headroom.
Hungary
Protein supply 93.6 g per day and the second lowest seafood consumption in the EU at 5.8 kg. Compound feed output is 3.65 million tonnes, half of it poultry feed. Hungary's maize and sunflower surplus makes it one of the better-placed members on domestically sourced feed protein, and its exposure is more to drought in the Pannonian basin than to import concentration.
Ireland
The highest protein supply in the EU at 136.9 g per day, and the most lopsided production profile: meat self-sufficiency was 233 per cent in 2024, with beef at 701 per cent, sheep meat 385 per cent and pigmeat 210 per cent, against poultry at only 72 per cent. It produces 14.8 per cent of EU butter. The binding constraint is regulatory rather than physical: the nitrates derogation ran to the end of 2025 and its renewal governs herd size.
Italy
Protein supply 116.6 g per day and seafood consumption 30.4 kg. Compound feed output 14.9 million tonnes, with poultry feed up 7.6 per cent in 2023. Italy imported 1.02 million tonnes of soya beans and 0.99 million tonnes of soya meal in July-December 2025/26, roughly 9 to 10 per cent of the EU total. Its exposure is compounded by Po Valley irrigation dependence and repeated drought in the north.
Latvia
Protein supply 110.8 g per day and seafood consumption 21.6 kg. Compound feed output 0.35 million tonnes, mostly poultry. Latvia is a cereal exporter with a small livestock sector, so it contributes to EU feed grain supply while importing the concentrate protein its own poultry sector needs. Low absolute exposure.
Lithuania
Protein supply 123.8 g per day and seafood consumption 20.0 kg. Compound feed output 0.60 million tonnes, with pig feed down 24 per cent in 2023, the steepest fall of any member state. Lithuania is a cereal and rapeseed exporter, and rapeseed meal is the one high-protein feed in which the EU is 75 per cent self-sufficient, which makes the Baltic rapeseed belt strategically useful out of proportion to its size.
Luxembourg
Protein supply 122.5 g per day and seafood consumption 29.5 kg. Industrial compound feed production is estimated at 90,000 tonnes, the smallest in the EU. Grassland dairy and beef dominate. Luxembourg has no meaningful feed processing of its own and depends entirely on Belgian, French and German supply chains, which makes it a pure beneficiary of single-market redundancy.
Malta
Protein supply 105.8 g per day. Industrial compound feed is estimated at 80,000 tonnes, and with Cyprus it recorded the most severe seasonal water scarcity in the EU in 2023. Negligible arable land means there is no domestic protein route. Bluefin tuna ranching is its main protein industry and it runs on imported feed fish, so Malta is structurally the most import-dependent member of the bloc.
Netherlands
The clearest expression of the EU model: import protein, export animal products. It handled 22 per cent of EU oilseed imports in July-December 2025/26, including 1.78 million tonnes of soya beans, and 15 per cent of soya meal, through Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and produced 13.8 million tonnes of compound feed. Protein supply is 117.1 g per day. National nitrogen policy and the nitrates derogation are shrinking the herd, and the Commission expects Dutch pigmeat output to fall faster than the EU average.
Poland
The EU's largest poultry producer at 2.9 million tonnes, 20.5 per cent of EU output, and third cereal producer at 34.3 million tonnes (2024). It took 15 per cent of EU soya meal imports in July-December 2025/26, and milk yields rose 46 per cent between 2014 and 2024, the fastest convergence in the bloc. Protein supply is 117.7 g per day and seafood consumption low at 13.7 kg. Repeated avian influenza outbreaks are its main production risk.
Portugal
Protein supply 126.4 g per day and by far the highest seafood consumption in the EU at 53.6 kg, against a national self-sufficiency position that is deeply negative in fish. Compound feed output rose 7.7 per cent to 4.44 million tonnes in 2023, the fastest growth in western Europe, and it imported 0.49 million tonnes of soya beans in July-December 2025/26. Portugal is structurally short of cereals and feed and is a net importer of both.
Romania
Fifth cereal producer at 17.9 million tonnes (2024) with 2.91 million tonnes of compound feed, most of it poultry. Protein supply is 112.4 g per day and seafood consumption low at 8.8 kg. Romania has a maize and sunflower surplus but thin processing capacity and weak Danube and Black Sea logistics, so it exports raw grain and imports the higher-value protein products its own crop could support.
Slovakia
The lowest protein supply in the EU at 81.3 g per person per day (2023) and seafood consumption of 10.2 kg. Compound feed output is 0.68 million tonnes and its poultry sector was cut back by avian influenza in 2023. Slovakia sits at the bottom of the bloc on protein availability, which is a demand and income issue rather than a production ceiling, but it leaves the least headroom for absorbing a price shock.
Slovenia
Protein supply 101.5 g per day and seafood consumption 11.2 kg. Compound feed output 0.40 million tonnes, three-fifths of it poultry feed, and one of the few member states to have increased total feed production in 2023. Small, grassland-based and wholly dependent on imported concentrate, Slovenia's position is determined by its neighbours' supply chains.
Spain
The EU's largest meat producer at 7.36 million tonnes (2023) and largest pigmeat producer at 5.0 million tonnes (2024), the largest compound feed producer at 27.5 million tonnes, and the largest importer of oilmeals, taking 17 per cent of EU soya meal and 1.71 million tonnes of soya beans in July-December 2025/26. It is also among the most water-scarce large economies in Europe. Spain is where the EU's protein model is most exposed: output is expanding, feed is imported, and the water base is contracting.
Sweden
Protein supply 112.8 g per day. Compound feed output 1.93 million tonnes, with low livestock density and a high grassland share. Sweden runs a cereal and rapeseed surplus and its protein system is among the least feed-import-exposed in the bloc in relative terms, though it imports a large share of the animal products it consumes from other member states.

Sources

  1. Reducing the plant protein deficit of the EU · European Commission, DG Agriculture and Rural Development (2026)
  2. Setting sustainable livestock farming on a strong footing (Livestock Strategy and Protein Action Plan adoption) · European Commission (2026)
  3. EU Livestock Strategy · European Commission, DG Agriculture and Rural Development (2026)
  4. European Commission publishes Protein Action Plan and Livestock Strategy to boost resilience · FoodBev Media (2026)
  5. EU agricultural outlook 2025-2035 · European Commission, DG Agriculture and Rural Development (2025)
  6. Feed & Food statistical yearbook 2024 · FEFAC (European Feed Manufacturers' Federation) (2025)
  7. EU Oilseeds and protein crops Trade, 2025/26 marketing year, July-December (Expert Group for the Common Organisation of the Agricultural Markets) · European Commission, DG AGRI / Eurostat Comext (2026)
  8. EU protein strategy (briefing PE 751.426) · European Parliamentary Research Service (2023)
  9. Can the EU chart a sustainable transition to greater protein self-sufficiency? · European Commission, Joint Research Centre (2024)
  10. Reducing the plant protein deficit of the European Union (news release) · European Commission, DG Agriculture and Rural Development (2024)
  11. The EU fish market, 2025 edition · EUMOFA (European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture Products) (2026)
  12. Status of marine fish and shellfish stocks in European seas · European Environment Agency (2025)
  13. Use of freshwater resources in Europe · European Environment Agency (2025)
  14. Agricultural production - livestock and meat · Eurostat, Statistics Explained (2025 (data 2024))
  15. Agricultural production - crops · Eurostat, Statistics Explained (2025 (data 2024))
  16. Milk and milk product statistics · Eurostat, Statistics Explained (2025 (data 2024))
  17. Agri-environmental indicator - mineral fertiliser consumption · Eurostat, Statistics Explained (2026 (data 2024))
  18. Energy statistics - an overview · Eurostat, Statistics Explained (2025 (data 2023))
  19. Population structure and ageing · Eurostat, Statistics Explained (2025)
  20. Ensuring availability and affordability of fertilisers, COM(2022) 590 · European Commission (2022)
  21. Safeguarding food security and reinforcing the resilience of food systems, COM(2022) 133 · European Commission (2022)
  22. Proposal on the temporary suspension of autonomous customs tariffs on certain fertilisers, COM(2026) 99 · European Commission (2026)
  23. Council suspends customs tariffs on certain fertilisers for one year · Council of the European Union (2026)
  24. Import dependence for nitrogen supply · CAP Reform (Alan Matthews), based on Eurostat (2025)
  25. Livestock and Poultry: World Markets and Trade (April 2026) · USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (2026)
  26. Dairy: World Markets and Trade · USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (2026)
  27. Daily per capita protein supply (FAO Food Balance Sheets) · Our World in Data (2026 (data 2023))
  28. EU agri-food exports reach record levels of EUR 235.4 billion in 2024 · European Commission, DG Agriculture and Rural Development (2025)
  29. CAP funds · European Commission (2025)
  30. Meat Supply Balance 2024 · Central Statistics Office, Ireland (2025)
  31. Commission publishes latest forecasts on EU feed protein production and trade · FEFAC (2022)
  32. EU fish populations show signs of recovery, but more efforts needed as key species struggle · European Commission, DG Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (2025)
  33. Inability to afford a meal with meat, chicken, fish (or vegetarian equivalent) every second day (table ilc_mdes03) · Eurostat, EU-SILC (2026 (data 2025))
  34. Prevalence of undernourishment · FAOSTAT via Our World in Data (2026 (data 2024))
  35. Total reserves in months of imports · World Bank (2025 (data 2024))
  36. Government finance statistics · Eurostat, Statistics Explained (2026 (data 2025))
  37. NextGenerationEU borrower and investor relations · European Commission (2026)
  38. HICP - monthly data (annual rate of change) (table prc_hicp_manr) · Eurostat (2026 (series to December 2025))
  39. Stunting prevalence among children under 5 years of age (SH.STA.STNT.ZS) · World Bank, sourced from UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Joint Malnutrition Estimates (2025)
  40. Share of the population who cannot afford a healthy diet (Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet, CoAHD) · FAO and World Bank (2025), using data and methods from Bai et al. (2024), via Our World in Data mirror (2025 (data 2024))
  41. EU population increases for the 4th consecutive year (population on 1 January 2025; underlying member-state populations in Eurostat table tps00001, used as the weights for our bloc CoAHD calculation) · Eurostat (2025)
  42. Daily cost of a healthy diet (Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet, CoAHD) · FAO and World Bank (2025), using data and methods from Bai et al. (2024), via Our World in Data mirror (2025 (data 2024))
  43. Inputs: Land Use (data, normalized): arable land, cropland, land area equipped for irrigation, EU-27 and member states, 2000-2024 · FAO (2025 (data 1961-2024))
  44. Investment: Credit to Agriculture (data, normalized): agriculture orientation index for credit, member states · FAO (2025 (data through 2024, coverage varies by member))
  45. Agri-environmental indicator - irrigation · Eurostat (2025 (data 2023))
  46. World Development Indicators: total population (SP.POP.TOTL), European Union aggregate and member states, 2000 and 2024 · World Bank (2026 (data 2000, 2024))

What we could not measure

No EU-wide affordability figure is published; the 8.2 per cent reading used here is our own population-weighted calculation across 27 national readings, and it hides a wide range, from under 1 per cent in the wealthiest members to 30.0 per cent in Hungary and 27.7 per cent in Slovakia. The EU discloses no bloc-level strategic food or cereal reserve, so endurance rests on trade position and fiscal capacity rather than stockholding. No child stunting data exists for the bloc as a whole.

Published August 2026 ·How scores are produced