Feed union calls for European action on escalating grain costs

European feed manufacturers’ federation FEFAC has called on the Farm Council of the European Union to suspend import duties on all cereals in order to ease the “extremely worrying” market situation of the EU livestock sector caused by escalating feed grain costs.
The last time the EU suspended cereal import duties was in 2007, according to the federation, and prices for feed grains have recently returned to the exceptionally high levels of 2007/2008. “The EU pig sector in particular is facing a near market collapse,” said FEFAC president Patrick Vanden Avenne. “A key reason is the rising cost of feed grains resulting from global demand outpacing supplies. The current market crisis has been further exacerbated by the knock-on effects of the dioxin incident in Germany, leading to a drastic fall in domestic consumption and the temporary closure of some important export markets for German pigmeat.
Market experts, according to Avenne, anticipate that the present tension on the EU and global cereals markets may grow further before the end of the marketing year due to rising global competition for scarce feed grain supplies.