Pig Processors Ignore Government Plea for Pig Price Improvement
FRANCE - A roundtable of pig farmers and processors organised by French agriculture minister Stephane Le Foll on Monday has failed to make any headway, according to a report from the UK's National Pig Association.
24 August 2015
2 minute read
By: The meeting was called after the two largest processors boycotted France's benchmark pig auction in Breton last week.
But this Tuesday Cooperl and Bigard were absent again. Between them, they would normally buy 30 per cent of the animals on sale.
The government has set a target price of 99p a kilo (at current exchange rates), the amount producers need to survive.
But Cooperl and Bigard oppose this attempt to interfere in the market. They both boycotted Le Foll's Monday meeting and French producers now have the added problem of a backlog of unsold pigs.
Mr Le Foll is to meet representatives from Spain, Italy and Portugal in Madrid next week and from Germany and Poland on August 31, to try and stop French farmers being undercut by other European Union producers and to discuss the effects of the Russian pigmeat embargo.
A special European Council meeting will discuss European Union farm price problems on September 7.
