AMA Marketing’s Quality Assurance Report Highlights Increase in Inspections and Budget for Agricultural Products

VIENNA. The central task of AMA Marketing is the quality assurance of agricultural products and their processed products. And it certainly does justice to this function, according to the AMA Marketing activity report for the previous year. According to the report, 41,258 farms were involved in the AMA Seal of Approval program. There were 23,500 on-site checks, after 17,000 checks in 2021. There were also around 4,400 product and residue analyses.

This was AMA Marketing’s response to the publication of films about abuses in fattening farms and slaughterhouses. The controls would focus on the “proper handling of sick animals and would be increasingly carried out in the pig and chicken fattening sector and intensified in 2023,” said AMA Marketing in its activity report.

Last year, AMA Marketing was able to enjoy a slightly higher budget: it rose from 19.2 to 19.8 million euros. The subsidiary of the market organization and paying agency Agrarmarkt Austria is largely financed through agricultural marketing contributions from farmers and processors. The largest contributors last year were milk with 10.1 million euros, meat with 5.3 million euros and fruit, vegetables and potatoes with 2.3 million euros.

In terms of the organic share per product group, only vegetables saw a significant increase from 11.2 percent to 17.77 percent. The organic content of milk is around 18 percent, 17.54 percent of cattle and 19.92 percent of potatoes. The highest organic share was in sheep and lambs at 28.9 percent.

With 5.9 billion euros – more than a third – Germany is Austria’s most important export market, followed by Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands.