EU pledges help to pig industry hit by Russian ban

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  Andrea Gantz

  The European Union has pledged assistance to the pig industry, which has been hit by a ban from Russia.

  From WATTAgNet:
  European Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan has announced measures to raise pork prices to help the industry hit by Russia’s ban on European Union (EU) pork products.
  The EU will provide financial aid to stockpile pork products withdrawn from the market in a bid to increase prices affected by the ban, which has been in place since January 2014, Hogan said on February 22. Russia slapped a ban last year on all pork imports from the EU after cases of African swine fever (ASF) were detected in boars in Lithuania.
  This measure described by Hogan should "remove a considerable amount of products from the market, stabilizing the financial situation of farmers" and "boost the fragile recovery in prices," Hogan said after he met with pork farmers at an agriculture fair in Paris.
  France and other European countries had requested the assistance measure.
  The EU appealed to the World Trade Organization over the embargo.
  In 2013, the 28-nation bloc raked in around EUR1.4 billion (US$1.9 billion) in pork sales to Russia.
  The assistance measure will also be helpful as EU pork exports are unlikely to show a substantial increase this year as the competition on the international market intensifies due to larger supplies, particularly from the United States, Brazil and Chile, according to a report from the British Pig Executive (BPEX).