April 27, 2009
No plan for market support for EU pig farmers
The European Commission won't take steps to support the market for pig meat because prices in the sector have risen this year, the European Union's top agriculture official said Friday (April 24).
Belgium, backed by Germany, France and other EU countries, asked the commission to help pig farmers whose profits have been squeezed by low prices and relatively high costs.
"We have no intention of introducing any market measures in the pig meat sector," Mariann Fischer Boel, the EU's farm chief, said at a press conference after a meeting of farm ministers.
Though pig farmers have faced difficult market conditions over the past year, Fischer Boel said prices have strengthened in the past few months as farmers have reduced production.
The commission has the authority to intervene by, for example, paying farmers to put their produce into storage or subsidizing exports. The commission is taking these steps to help beleaguered dairy farmers, who have been hit hard by the plunging price of butter and milk over the past nine months.
"We certainly do not underestimate the difficulties in the dairy sector," Fischer Boel said.
