The Breakdown of Final Consumption of Agrifood Products Into Values Added. Attempting a Europe‑Wide Comparison[La répartition de la consommation finale de produits agroalimentaires en valeurs ajoutées. Essai de comparaison européenne]

This article proposes an intra-European comparison of the breakdown of consumption expenditure on agrifood products into values added induced for the different branches, taxes and imports. It focuses in particular on the level of the share of agriculture in this consumption, alongwith its determinants. This study makes use of the calculations first proposed by W. Leontief, tailored to the available data (Eurostat input-output tables), and builds upon two measures which already exist at national level: the "euro alimentaire" in France, and the "food dollar" in the USA. The results show that those countries with high imports and high taxes stand apart from those countries where the distribution of consumption expenditure is more favourable towards value added. Countries also vary in the way this value added is distributed between the trade and service sectors, on the one hand, and agriculture and the agrifood processing industry, on the other. In France, compared with other European nations, the breakdown of expenditure is fairly favourable to value added, while the share taken by agriculture is close to the European mean.