He stated that “the current market situation of the E.U. livestock sector is extremely worrying. In particular the E.U. pig sector is facing a near market collapse. A key reason for this situation lays in particular in the rising cost for feed grains, which have recently reached the levels of 2007-08, resulting from global demand outpacing supplies of feed grains. The current market crisis has been further exacerbated by the knock-on effects of the dioxin incident in Germany leading to a drastic fall in domestic consumption and temporary closure of some important export markets for German pigmeat. In the meantime, however, market experts anticipate that the present tension on the E.U. and global cereals markets may grow further before the end of the marketing year due to rising global competition for scarce feed grain supplies.”
FEFAC therefore urged the E.U. Farm Council to ease the market access to the supply of competitive feed grains on the E.U. market by suspending the import duties for all cereals as in 2007, in the light of the exceptional market situation.
FEFAC also fully supports the request of COPA-COGECA to open the private storage mechanism for pigmeat in order to facilitate the short-term stabilization of the E.U. pig market.
