While agricultural and agri-food products have historically been segments that show a surplus in the French trade balance, the balance for these products deteriorated in 2025, even turning slightly negative from the spring onwards. Poor harvests in 2024 led to a deterioration in the agricultural balance, which has partially recovered since. With regard to agri-food products, the decline in the balance in value terms is mainly attributed to meats, tropical products (cocoa, tea and coffee) and dairy products. This downturn is mainly due to the increase in imports from non-European Union countries. In Europe, such a deterioration in relation to the rest of the world was not unique to France in 2025, but it was more pronounced there than elsewhere.

The deterioration in the food balance in 2025 compared with 2024 is primarily explained by a price effect, with a deterioration in terms of trade, particularly for tropical commodities and agricultural products. However, beyond this deterioration, the food trade balance had previously weakened immediately after the pandemic in terms of volumes traded, but this deterioration had been masked until 2024 by an improvement in terms of trade, linked notably to the price of exported beverages, which disappeared in 2025. Consequently, between the end of the 2010s and 2025, 80% of the deterioration in the trade balance for food products stemmed from a deterioration in volumes, especially for beverages, meat and dairy products, with the remainder explained by the deterioration in terms of trade.

By mid-2026, the food balance should recover only partially. The rebound in the balance for agricultural products is expected to continue, thanks to the renewed availability of cereals for export made possible by higher harvests in 2025. The easing of tropical commodity prices (cocoa and coffee) since the summer of 2025, although remaining at a high level, should help to improve terms of trade. In the short term, the balance for beverages is likely to remain dependent on developments in trade tensions. However, the more structural factors (de-capitalisation of the cattle herd, loss of export market shares, rising imports of processed products), which have been hampering the external agri-food balance since the 2010s, are unlikely to improve in the short term...