March 14, 2007

Czech farmers plan blockades on Austrian pork imports
 

Czech farmers plan blockades of border crossings with Austria by end-March in protest against increasing pork imports from Austria, Agricultural Chamber president Jan Veleba said.

Farmers want to point out that Czech pig breeders are facing the threat of a collapse, Veleba said but did not elaborate on the dates or the number of border crossings to be affected by the protest.

Retail chain Ahold opened a meat packaging plant in Cracow, Poland in August 2006. The plant supplies meat to Ahold outlets in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia.

Austria's Interspar has started to import meat from Austria after cancelling Czech meat sales in more than half of its shops. Tesco Stores imports up to half of all meat it sells, said Veleba.

This represents 37,000 tonnes of meat and losses worth about Kc2.4 billion a year, he added.

Farmers also plan to hand out leaflets calling on consumers to prefer Czech food in front of supermarkets and hypermarkets that import a considerable part of their meat supply.