Portugal’s protesting pig farmers blocked one of the country’s largest processing units yesterday morning as prices continue to fall across the sector.
Pork has seldom been cheaper in Portugal’s supermarkets and the protest outside the Santarém plant that supplies Sonae’s Continente retail chain was born of fears for the 200,000 Portuguese jobs that rely on the pig trade.
Pig farmers are protesting at Sonae’s pricing policy where domestic meat is marketed at higher prices than imports.
Total pork production from Portugal does not cater for overall domestic demand, but currently pig farmers are unable to shift their stock unless they accept below cost prices. With production at €1.50 a kilo and current market prices at €1.00, the situation is and may get worse.
The Portuguese Association of Distribution Companies responded to criticisms saying that low pork prices have resulted from a declining European market with oversupply caused by the Russian embargo on European products.
While this situation continues, the association said the pig sector needs a strategy that promotes the excellence of the national pork and to search for new markets.
In Portugal, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, the national average price of pork has fallen 13 weeks in a row, down a crippling 15% year on year.
This has been caused by the increasing level of production within Portugal which, according to data from the National Statistics Institute, has increased every month between January and August this year, and is 13% up on last year.
The European Union has just approved a pork storage programme to help farmers who, from January next year, can store their excess meat and release it later when the prices have risen.
While the macro-economics continue to cause pain across the pig farming sector, shoppers seldom have had it so good with prices at historic lows.
The resulting brisk demand and in store loss leaders should easily be able to pull through the excess stocks to help stabilise prices.
