The pigs are fed wheat, soya, corn or even sunflower and “food represents 65%-70% of the cost price”, believes Pierre-Yves Lariven, pig farmer in the Côtes d’Armor, Friday March 4, at the Agricultural Show. On Thursday, the price of cereals broke historic records, with a ton of wheat sold at 380 euros, 80 euros more than the previous week. This is one of the consequences of the war in Ukraine, because Russia and Ukraine are major grain producers.
Russia-Ukraine crisis: gas, wheat, oil… What are the possible economic consequences for the French?
For raising 270 Pierre-Yves Lariven sows, the feed “It’s huge bills! I have two food trucks a week and a food truck is more than 9,000 euros.” The pig and poultry sectors are the first to be affected by this spectacular price increase and stocks will not last forever. “The fear that we have is that the consumer is moving towards cheaper products that come from abroad. But the consumer must continue to buy French and he will have to accept an increase .”
“If we cannot increase our prices, we breeders, we will not survive what is happening.”
Pierre-Yves Lariven, pig farmer in Côtes-d’Armorat franceinfo
Especially since the pig industry is already very fragile today. “We do not cover the production costs”ensures Didier Le Blévennec, breeder near Guingamp. “We are missing about 30 euros per pig. Automatically, treasuries deteriorate. It’s yet another pressure on the cost of food.”
Thanks to the Egalim 2 law, which must guarantee better consideration of farmers’ production costs, the last trade negotiations, Wednesday, March 2, have however made it possible to pay the farmers a little better. These negotiations oppose each year the agri-food industry and the mass distribution about the price of the products put on the shelves for the year. But as soon as the discussions were over, all the levels were reset for the breeders. “Hardly, did they pull their heads out of the water a little, saying to themselves ‘finally we have finished the negotiations, that we put on a layer of increased production costs. That’s why they wonder: ‘what will happen in six months?deplores Henri Bies-Péré, vice-president of the FNSEA. “Are we reopening Egalim? Are we raising prices again? 10% more to pay for food?”, asks the union representative, “All of this is in the hands of the government, it is he who holds the purse strings. In any case, we should not ask the farmer to foot the bill again”he warns.
The European Union is considering measures to lower the bill for breeders, for example the possibility of cultivating fallow land to feed their animals.