EU Journalism Scholarships Tariffs Obstacle to Trade with the Rest of the World

Tariffs have a major negative impact on imports of food products to the EU. A new report from the AgriFood Economics Centre at Lund University, Sweden, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) shows that relatively small adjustments to the duties would lead to an increase in trade.

Increased imports often mean cheaper products for EU consumers and greater opportunities for producers in other countries to export their products, but also increased competition for EU producers.

“I have compared various product groups and found that the effects of a reduction in tariffs would be different for fruit and vegetables and for cereals”, says Cecilia Hammarlund, who is behind The report "Handel med hinder – effekter av tullar på EU jordbruksimport" (Trade with obstacles – effects of tariffs on EU agricultural imports), which includes a summary in English on pages 7-10, can be downloaded from www.agrifood.se.

The AgriFood Economics Centre is a collaboration between Lund University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

For more information
Contact: Cecilia Hammarlund, researcher at the AgriFood Economics Centre, School of Economics and Management, Lund University; cecilia.hammarlund@agrifood.lu.se, +46 46 222 07 90.