Danish vegetable self-sufficiency falls to 25%, prompting VAT removal
Denmark is preparing to eliminate VAT on fruits and vegetables after a government report revealed domestic production has plummeted to just a quarter of national consumption, exposing a food security vulnerability driven by the EU's internal wage gap.
The Danish government is preparing a new food strategy that includes scrapping value-added tax on fruits and vegetables entirely. The move is a direct response to a new report from Madkulturen, an agency under the Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, which found that domestic vegetable production has collapsed from 92 percent six decades ago to just 25.6 percent today. Fruit production has fared even worse, dropping from over half of the national market to a mere 8 percent.
The decline is a stark illustration of how labor cost disparities within the European single market reshape agricultural supply chains. Danish salaries are roughly 800 percent higher than those in Poland, making it vastly cheaper to outsource production. Denmark now accounts for only 0.4 percent of the EU’s total fruit and vegetable output, trailing far behind Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, and Greece.
This shift has fundamentally altered Danish farming. Only 0.6 percent of the country's cultivated land is currently dedicated to fruits and vegetables, less than a third of the European average of 2 percent. Where domestic production does survive, it lacks diversity, with carrots and onions making up 48 percent of the total harvested weight. Blackcurrant production alone has plummeted by 91 percent as imports took over the berry market.
While domestic produce carries a 7 percent price premium in supermarkets, the report suggests cost is not the
