Brussels, 15/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - Belgium briefed the Agriculture Council in Luxembourg on Thursday 14 April on the outcome of a debate within the Belgian pig meat sector with a view to laying the foundations of a European structural mechanism which seeks to moderate, in the short term and along the whole supply chain, the extreme variations in the prices of raw materials. This project, Belgium says, must be intimately linked to the debates which are currently taking place within various bodies on price volatility and the structural problems being faced by some, such as the pig sector.
Because of the serious crisis in the pig meat sector, Belgian pig farmers met several times to discuss how to mitigate the effects of the volatility of prices of raw materials. Broad consensus was reached on putting in place an additional, temporary support mechanism along the whole chain, the Belgian delegation said.
Under the intervention mechanism suggested by Belgium, if gross margins were to fall below a certain threshold, farmers in each member state would be requested to examine how to offset, in part or in full, the difference between a reference gross margin and the cost of feed. This mechanism would operate for three months and compensation would be calculated on a monthly basis.
At the Council meeting, most of the countries which spoke agreed with Belgium's observations. Strongest support for the Belgian ideas came from Poland, Romania and Malta. Other countries, such as France, wanted to extend the debate to other instruments (contracts, inter-branch organisations, etc).
European Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloº said that the Belgian proposals would have to be debated in the advisory group on pig meat set up by the Commission among whose tasks is consideration of improved market measures which could be included in the legislative package on CAP reform.
On the problem in general, not simply in the pig meat sector, the commissioner noted that better market information could help reduce price volatility (the Commission has already made proposals to this effect in the package of measures for the dairy sector). The legislative package on the reform will also contain proposals on better producer organisation. The Commission intends to include in the reform package “instruments which will help producers deal with price volatility which also affects their incomes”, Cioloº stated. (L.C./transl.rt)