Historical record of the price of the pig. Fattened pig prices have already exceeded two euros per live kilo on the Mercolleida price board, the benchmark market in Spain. Accumulate twelve weeks in a row in which prices climb up to 2,025 euros, 23% more than in December.
Some producers blame this rise on reproductive problems caused by a variant of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome. To this would be added, according to sources in the veterinary sector, that farms have made a great effort in the sustainable use of additives, which is making health management difficult.
Miguel Ángel Higuera, director of the National Association of Pig Producers, considers that this variant is worrying exclusively in farms that have been infected "but it has no impact on the whole of Spain" and instead estimates the structural decline at 1%. of breeders due to the “tremendous rise in the price of raw materials”. "Some have had to kill animals because they could not pay for the feed to feed them," he denounces.
For its part, the National Association of Meat Industries of Spain (Anice) affirms that the escalation of production costs, uncertainties about the evolution of the markets and regulatory pressure threaten the meat industry, which translates " in a situation in the short and medium term of scarcity in the supply of animals and high prices of meat raw materials, especially in pork and beef”. Giuseppe Aloisio, deputy to the general secretary of Anice, maintains that most of the rise in costs has been assumed by the industrial sector: "In a time of high inflation, a rise in prices would have aggravated a situation that is already complicated for the families”.
He considers that "if meat had been included in the group of products benefiting from the VAT reduction, families could have had the opportunity to access the purchase of animal proteins, absolutely essential for human nutrition." The sector faces other difficulties derived from the high energy costs that, according to Anice, were 344% higher last year than in 2019, and new regulatory costs, such as the plastic tax, which has been introduced in a pioneering way Spain. "In these circumstances -says Aloisio-, the sector requests urgent and extraordinary measures that must go through a lower fiscal and regulatory pressure that helps to face the escalation of production costs and also the increase in energy costs".
As the Mercolleida fish market pointed out in its latest bulletin, “what seemed impossible is happening. With a round rise of two cents, the pig price this week breaks the barrier of two euros per live kilo. Forcing the computer simile, we are facing a (more than) improved version of the price of the pig. The pig 2.0”. And he warned that there are "less pigs and more desire to buy."
“The slaughterhouse inevitably faces a clamp between its more expensive raw material than ever and sales of meat whose prices continue to be stagnant in the official wave of containing inflation in food prices, the decrease in consumption due to low prices that have already risen and the insufficiency of that rise in the face of the endless escalation of the pig”, added the bulletin. "The most reliable thermometer to see what the future holds for the pig is going to be the piglet: as long as it continues to rise at these price levels, it reflects a shortage of piglets," he added.
