February 25, 2011

EU stops pork aid on price recovery

The European Commission has stopped EU financial aid to help pork producers cover meat storage costs, adding such support has already led to an upturn in EU pork prices.

"Prices are on the upswing. Private storage aid is stabilising the market," the EU executive said on Thursday (Feb 24).

The suspension will be applied retroactively from February 15, the Commission said, meaning only applications received before that date would be considered.

By the end of last week, the Commission had received applications to store about 139,000 tonnes of pork meatfor between 90 and 150 days.

About 28 % of applications came from Germany, 21% from Spain, and 13% from Denmark, the Commission said.

The Commission approved the EU storage aid at the end of January in response to soaring feed costs, which led to protests by EU livestock farmers and warnings that many could go out of business.