Pig Farmers: Europe Has Surplus Pork and is Exporting Swine to Serbia

Pig farmers in Serbia estimate that the possibilities for the export of pork to Europe are almost non-existent, because, due to the surplus of that type of meat in the European market, the prices in that market are lower than in the local one.

They cite the example of pigs having been imported to Serbia recently at a bargain price of RSD 180 per kilogram, which lowers the price of local pigs of RSD 230.

– Big farms and slaughterhouses have imported around 20,000 pigs, because Denmark and other European countries offer them at RSD 180 per kilogram and are bringing them practically at our door, so local producers will not be able to sell theirs at RSD 230, which is what the price has been in the past month or two, so they will have to lower the price and sell them, even though this “importing” price will cause them to record losses – Bora Suljmanac, a pig farmer from Lacarak near Sremska Mitrovica, told Beta.

The minister of agriculture, forestry and water management of Serbia, Branislav Nedimovic, said a few days ago that another control of the external revision of the European Food Safety Authority remained in February 2022, due to the vaccination against the swine fever, following which, if the results are good, the permit for the export of pork from Serbia to the EU states should be approved and issued.

Suljmanac said that meat packers imported frozen, cheap, low-quality meat from European countries to make the same kind of meat products, which creates surplus pork in the market of Serbia, whereas local meat is only used for sale in an unprocessed, fresh condition.

Vitomir Vidovic, an expert in genetics and animal breeding, said that Serbia might be able to export pork to Europe only around two years later, when the last vaccinated pig is slaughtered, but added that there was a pork surplus of 50 million head of livestock in Europe.

Small producers in the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium, he said, had organized themselves by establishing a slaughterhouse where they are shareholders, whereas Serbia is a “sleepy” state, according to him, and the church is not interested in the social standard of the people either, which is why they’re not influencing the authorities to help the producers, unlike those countries.

Ministarstvo poljoprivrede, šumarstva i vodoprivrede Republike Srbije

Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Water Management of Serbia

European Food Safety Authority

Bora Šuljmanac

Branislav Nedimović

Vitomir Vidović

Laćarak

farming pigs

production of farming pigs

export of pork

pork

price of meat

importing of pigs

vaccination against swine fever

meat packers

slaughterhouses

price of pigs