The Spanish Association of Beef Beef Producers (Asoprovac) has sent a letter to the Minister of Agriculture in which he expresses his concern about what they have called the “perfect storm” in the face of the situation of the prices of animals destined for slaughter together with the recent and excessive volatility in the prices of raw materials and the serious consequences that this is having on Spanish producers.
Since we first alerted the agriculture ministry to the difficult situation at the beginning of October, it seems that the prices of animals destined for slaughter have stopped falling. However, they are still well below pre-COVID prices, accumulating a decrease of € 0.38 / kg carcass in males destined for slaughter according to the Binefar Fish Market, one of the main reference fish markets.
In parallel, to this delicate situation that we already found in the month of October, another circumstance has been added that is undoubtedly generating enormous concern among the sector and that is that beef producers are powerlessly watching the prices of raw materials for the manufacture of Feed (barley, wheat, corn and soybeans) are rising in a disproportionate and unstoppable way, especially soybeans, whose price has reached close to the barrier of € 450 / tonne, fed both by the weather news in some areas the world, the insatiable demand from China and the action of hedge funds.
The prices of raw materials are thus beginning to approach the previous crisis of raw materials, that of the years 2012-2013, which resulted in a significant drop in production estimated at 10-15% but which we must also highlight a big difference. This is the price of animals for slaughter, on average 11% lower than in 2012, which undoubtedly explains the reason for this new alert.
For the beef producing sector, the situation is even more unsustainable at times like the current one, in which the ineffectiveness of market stabilizing mechanisms in the European Union is observed.
Once again the Asoprovac reminds the minister of the urgency of establishing support measures for this sector and urges the action of the pertinent administrations -National and regional-, in an energetic and decisive manner and to make use with the greatest urgency of the transitory regulations and the recovery aid of 8,000 million euros approved today in the plenary session of the EP as a compensation measure for the serious falls in income in order not to have to regret in the future the disaster of the meat producing sector in the first place and, later, the agro-industrial sector that depends directly on it.
Asoprovac assures that, if this situation continues in the face of this perfect storm, the consequences will be even more dramatic than those of the aforementioned campaign, when in this beef sector, there was a decrease of around 10-15% of production of meat.
(Photo: File)
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