The areas of hops comprise worldwide around 60,000 ha of bitter, aromatic and flavor varieties. The harvest reaches approximately 100 to 130,000 tons of hops and approximately 10 to 13,000 tons of alpha-acids. Hop growing in Slovenia plays an important role internationally, as it represents around 3% of the world’s hop area. The economic situation in hop industry is determined by production and market development in a global brewing industry (2 billion hl of beer annually). The demand of breweries for varieties of hops, the possibilities of modern forms of processing and storage of hop products, as well as the occasional speculations of a small number of global hop traders also affect the economics of hop production. The most important factors in assessing the economic efficiency of agricultural production are the crop amount and price of hops (income) and the production costs (expenditure). We summarize the market situation within the annual meetings of the Economic Commission of the International Hop Growers’ Convention, following business reports of producer organizations and trading houses, and through personal contacts with hop growers and traders
We are preparing a model calculation of production costs (SIMAHOP) for the needs of consulting work. The calculation of the costs of hop production is the basis for estimating farmer’s own price, which is the starting point for making decisions when selling hops. In 2022, the hop growing circle also came to life, where we evaluate the economics of hop production on the farms of participating hop growers. We report about the hop market situation in various publications.