March 14, 2022

EU sets up European Pigmeat Reflection Group

The European Commission has set up the European Pigmeat Reflection Group to review all aspects of the sector to ensure its sustainability and resilience in socio-economic, environmental, climate, animal health and animal welfare terms.

The EU pigmeat sector has been facing serious difficulties for several months due to various factors, namely sanitary restrictions impacting out-of-home consumption, the slowdown of exports to China, the continuing spread of African swine fever to more EU countries and rising input costs.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine also has an additional impact on the sector given its need for animal feed and the necessity to find other markets for European exports of pigmeat.

Strengthening the socio-economic resilience of the sector, especially in relation to imported plant proteins, has become increasingly necessary. This requires in-depth reflection, as current difficulties go beyond the seasonal fluctuations of the pig production cycle. With these concerns in mind, a meeting was convened on March 10 by EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Janusz Wojciechowski. The discussion will focus on import dependence of animal feed.

Facilitated by the agricultural department of the European Commission, the European Pigmeat Reflection Group takes the form of joint meetings of the Civil Dialogue Group for Animal Products (Section Pigmeat) and the Expert Group of the Committee for the Common Organisation of Agricultural Markets (Section Animal Products), gathering national experts from all EU member states.

In addition to this meeting, five more meetings are planned for this year. Each meeting will be dedicated to a specific topic with reports made public.

The first plenary meeting will take place online on April 6. It will be dedicated to the sector’s socio-economic dynamics.

Subsequent meetings will deal with the sector’s environmental and climate challenges, as well as animal health and welfare considerations.

- European Commission