European horticulture will remember 2011 as a horror year. The EHEC-crisis, many and early volumes because of the warm weather conditions and overlapping selling periods were the cause of difficulties in the sector. Prices even decreased below the already bad level of 2009, the European Commission confirmed in its recently published statistical annual report about the EU-agriculture in 2011.The annual report documents the development inside the separate production areas of the EU-agricultural sector. It is found that already before the EHEC-crisis vegetable prices were 25% lower than during the same period in 2010. The collapse in the sales of cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, because of the fear for the EHEC-bacteria, together with the Russian import embargo for a number of weeks did worsen the situation on the market further. Tomatoes partly became 40% cheaper than in the same period of 2010. "The bad weather conditions during the summer and the general economic situation were also not stimulating sales" the experts of the Algemene Directie Landbouw (General Directorate Agriculture) write. In addition potato prices remained at a comparably low level because of a growing production everywhere in the EU.
Part of the oversupply of vegetables could be exported to third world countries. The export of tomatoes increased compared to 2010 by 26%, cucumbers by 29% and the export of potatoes even by 132%. According to the European Commission an extraordinary quantity of potatoes was supplied to Russia.