Pig farming in Europe has gone negative. But the industry will bounce back quickly

What is the future of pig farming in Europe. Yury Kovalev, General DIRECTOR of the National Union of Pig Breeders, explains

Pig farmers in Europe are protesting and demanding government help. In the two years of the pandemic, the industry has been severely affected by high feed costs, African plague, and declining exports to CHINA . But it is still too early to bury the industry - there is still a shortage of MEAT in the world.

Pig farming in Europe is facing a crisis, and farmers have begun to protest en masse. In the Spanish city of Lorca, pig farmers broke through the police and tried to get into the city council. Farmers wanted to disrupt a meeting at which officials planned to impose new restrictions on the construction of livestock farms and the expansion of existing ones.

In France, farmers also protested. They called on the government to help the suffering industry. The thing is that the cost of feed for pigs has increased, and the purchase price has decreased. Farm owners have to sell animals at a loss.

During the protest, pig farmers blocked the highway with tractors and hung banners on cars calling on President Emmanuel Macron to provide funds to the industry, Connexionfrance.com wrote.

In the UK, pig production is also in crisis. Even last year, due to rising gas prices, slaughterhouses began to lack carbon dioxide. As a result, animals accumulated on farms and workers had to kill them. Because of this, the supply chain was disrupted, since pigs slaughtered on farms cannot be sent to store shelves, the BBC wrote. The pig industry was hit by a shortage of employees and lockdowns.

Government measures did not help the industry. The pigs are still not slaughtered on time, and the animals themselves are gaining excess weight, making it increasingly difficult for farmers to cope with them, wrote The Guardian.

The crisis in pig production has also affected the Baltic countries. In Estonia, farmers are faced with rising grain prices and low purchase prices. The pig farmers are selling their last animals and plan to shut down operations in the spring, Regnum wrote.

The future of the industry

Pig production has also been hit by a decline in meat exports to China and African swine fever, which has stalled shipments in several export-oriented countries. The demand and preferences of Europeans have changed - they now oppose the cultivation of livestock in cages. Farmers from other livestock farms in Europe have begun to fear that their industry will suffer the same fate, the Euractiv website wrote.

Despite the fact that many European countries have faced problems in animal husbandry, pig farmers do not predict the industry will die out. Director General of the National Union of Pig Breeders Yuri Kovalev told 360 that global production and consumption of pork is at a stable level.

“Of course, the consumption of all kinds of other vegetable analogues of meat is growing, but these are niche products. The world's population continues to grow. In developed countries, meat is consumed at a level of 70 to 80 kilograms, and in the rest of the world - no more than 40 kilograms, ”said Kovalev.

According to him, until now, a huge number of people in the world are experiencing a shortage of meat. As their wealth increases, consumption increases. According to Kovalev, pig breeding will still exist for a long time and it has a fairly good development prospects.