The government will implement an “emergency plan” of 270 million euros to support the cash flow of pig farmers, weakened by the double effect of the surge in their costs and the fall in prices, announced Monday the Minister of Agriculture, Julien Denormandie.
“On the one hand, you have charges that are increasing and, on the other, you have prices that are falling, which are deeply weakened. This scissor effect, as it is called, leads to an absolutely worrying situation for many pig farms,” the minister said.
It is a question of “consolidating the cash flow of our pig farmers”, added Julien Denormandie after a meeting with professionals in the sector, who had been mobilizing for several weeks, particularly in Brittany, the main producing region.
The executive’s “plan” includes a first part which must be “paid in the coming weeks”: “emergency aid of 75 million euros” for breeders short of cash – “I am thinking of young farmers who sometimes have significant debts”, said the minister.
A second more significant part, of 175 million, should intervene in a second time, once obtained the approval of the European Union. The objective is that this aid “can arrive in the farmyards during the month of April, at the latest at the beginning of May”.
Finally, producers will benefit from exemptions from charges of up to 20 million euros.
The Minister repeatedly considered that it was an “unprecedented crisis”, “from memory it is probably one of the most serious crises experienced by the pork sector for many years now”.
Last week, the pork interprofession Inaporc called for “urgent state support”, to absorb the some “440 million euros in losses” suffered by breeders in the sector in one year.
In question, the slump in pork prices, but above all the jump in production costs (animal feed, energy).
The interprofession estimates that breeders are currently losing between 25 and 30 euros per pig raised “and many of them are abandoning their pig production or are considering doing so”.