The FNP asks the slaughterers to take into account the additional costs

Castration of pigs

53 min

According to the National Porcine Federation (FNP), producer groups have been submitting contract proposals to slaughterers for several weeks in order to pass on the management of pain during the castration of pigs, compulsory since January 1, 2022. They would have remained dead letter.

“The first batches of castrated pigs taking into account the pain will arrive on the market in June, but slaughterers are still refusing to apply a plus-value linked to the additional cost incurred”, reports François Valy, president of the FNP, on May 17, 2022.

In a press release published the same day, the union assures that for several weeks, “breeders and their organizations have offered contracts taking into account an additional cost of 13.7 euro cents per kilo. They have no response from fellers or indigent answers”.

> To read also: Breeding crisis, a French pork price “disconnected from other European places” (04/05/2022)

“The gap is widening” with whole males

Beginning of December 2021, meat culturethe actors’ unionslaughter-cutting in France, offered an added value of 2 euro cents per kilo for pigs castrated with anesthesia. According to François Valy, this position has remained unchanged since. However, according to the union official, the gap in technical and economic results is widening between whole and castrated male pigs.

> To read also: Pig, the end of live castration is causing trouble (06/01/2022)

“The main difference is in theconsumption index, which is better in whole males, explains François Valy. With the price of food soaring, a castrated male costs more and more to produce compared to a whole male”. Thus, the additional cost of 13.7 cents calculated by the union would even already be obsolete. “It had been calculated for a feed price of €240 per tonne. It is now around €390/t”.

Conclude negotiations by the end of May

The FNP, on behalf of the FNSEA and of young farmers (JA), demands that the negotiations “conclude before the end of May, a non-negotiable deadline”. She considers that the attitude of the slaughterers respects neither “the spirit of the loi Egalim nor the “Roadmap” signed on the occasion of the emergency plan for the pork sector presented by the Minister of Agriculture in January 2022.

” The production costs are blazing again, without anyone knowing where it will stop, and breeders continue to lose money for each pig sold”, supports the Syndicate. According to François Valy, just to achieve a balance, breeders would need a price paid of €2.10/kg. At dial from Plérin, the base price for pork has been stable for more than a month at around €1.68/kg.

> To read also: The Evel’Up group calls for saving the Breton pork market (05/11/2022)