Swine crisis, another wasted opportunity

After the mad cow disease, EU countries are going through the foot-and-mouth crisis, which kills pigs by dozens of thousands and could lead to sacrificing millions of them. Romanian meat producers cannot take advantage of this opportunity, though.

The domestic pork market will be affected by the ban on imports from the European Union, Viorel Andronie, head of the Antiepizootics Department within the Agriculture Ministry, told Ziarul Financiar.

Romanian pork producers may not export to European Union countries as the vaccination against swine pest is in progress in Romania. For medical reasons, the European Union does not import pork from vaccinated swine. On the other hand, the Romanian producers have no other way out, as nobody will reimburse them for the possible loss of swine claimed by the pest.

“Maintaining vaccination is one of the issues negotiated in the EU accession process. We specify in every report that we want to keep vaccination going, as we cannot possibly come up with reimbursement funds as the EU countries do,” Andronie added.

Romanian pork producers can provide for 35% of the internal necessary, while the rest is imported mainly from Holland, Belgium, Germany and Hungary, according to Andronie. He added that Romania was currently importing only live swine from Hungary, every other import being prohibited due to the risk of aftose fever spread.

“Romania’s domestic production is not enough, and imports will be affected, but the producers can now better capitalise their output and even increase it, given that many were complaining about how they can’t sell their pork due to imports,” the Agriculture Ministry official said.

The president of the Romanian Meat Association, Mihai Lungu, says that short-term import ban will only lead to an increase in end-prices and to shutting down productive capacities, because restoring the livestock raising segment will take up at least five years.

“Should this measure be extended after March 31 and according to the demand/supply ratio, we will start looking for other areas to import from,” Lungu specified.

There are 4.5 million pigs in Romania at the moment, of which more than four million belong to private breeders.

The National Sanitary-Veterinary Agency (ANSV) last week banned import and transit of livestock and livestock-related products from the European Union countries between March 15-31, but the ban could be lifted depending on how the disease evolves.