Much has been said about the strong impact of rising energy and raw material costs on sectors such as industry, hospitality or agriculture. But if there is another activity that suffers particularly insatiably from this phenomenon, it is animal husbandry. The province of Alicante lost about 46,000 chickens and 23,000 goats and sheep in just two years.represents 20% of the total. The reason must be sought in the unaffordable costs of caring for the animals, which caused the ranchers to stop replacing them. The result is a reduction in meat, milk and egg production, which threatens to create supply problems..
Livestock has been going through more than a complex situation for some time now. This was revealed by the latest animal census published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), which concluded: The state of Alicante lost a total of 630 farms, from 1,590 in 2009 to 960 in 2020..
So, this trend has gained strong momentum in the last two years and coincided with the same. increase in costs that put businesses on the edge. Juan Luis Gimeno, head of the sector in Asaja-Alicante and head of a goat farm in the municipality of Monóvar, confirms that he does not hesitate to point out that “the future is very dark”. and all because For example, feed became 60% more expensive and drugs 40% more expensive.while electricity remains well above its cost in 2020. «Filling a silo – laments Gimeno – used to cost me 3,500 euros and now 6,000 euros, the price of a feed truck has increased from 1,400 euros to 2,800 euros ”.
These increases have also resulted in higher meat and dairy prices for producers, but not to the same extent, emphasizing the “we can barely cope” point.
The result was a strong reduction in head counts of both goats and sheep, which the person responsible for Asaja estimated at 20%. In his words, “farmers chose not to change animalsbecause it takes a year until they start producing and in the meantime they have to maintain it without getting anything in return.
This decrease, which also contributes to the loss of life due to tuberculosis, primarily causes a decrease in the volume of meat and milk required for cheese production.
chickens
A very similar phenomenon occurs in laying hens. Vicente Sánchez, owner of a farm in Novelda, points out that in addition to rising grain and electricity costs, the prices of birds are also rising. The result is that losses that occur naturally, as with goats and sheep, are not covered, and in some cases, losses that occur when performing mandatory sanitary evacuations on farms. “I have 12,000 chickens in my facility, he explains, so it would cost me around 100,000 euros to replace them all, which is a very difficult thing to deal with.” He warns that this problem will be exacerbated by new European animal welfare regulations that will force all birds ever kept in cages to be on land.will reduce the capacity of farms by 50%.
For free-range chicken farms, such as the farm owned by Paco Baeza in Mutxamel, the situation is not so worrying because the eggs they produce are more valuable. Despite this, costs, including packaging costs, «They narrowed our profit margins a lot. The final price is impossible to impress because we will not sell».
Eggs are the product that is starting to become scarce the most.Also due to the avian flu epidemic affecting Europe and northern Spain, which led some supermarket chains, such as Catalan BonÀrea, to ration their distribution. According to the Asucova employers’ association, this is not the case for those operating in the Valencian Community, at least for now. Your suppliers supply on time.
All these issues will be discussed at a briefing by Asaja next Monday in Elche, and the need to report violations of the Food Chain Law will also be analyzed, according to Ramón Espinosa, the organisation’s technical secretary. Farmers are not paid below cost.