THE Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA) and the Brazilian Animal Protein Association (ABPA) announced the creation of the Crisis Management Committee. The initiative aims to accompany and propose solutions to the problems created in the international market for poultry and pork meat in the country.
The committee will also analyze the impacts of embargoes also on the domestic market, the sustainability of the vast meat production chain, the employment of workers in the industries and the viability of integrated rural producers.
“We need to establish a win-win pact between producer and industry so that everyone is adequately remunerated and so that, in a crisis situation, everyone can bear in proportion to the difficulties,” said CNA president João Martins da Silva Júnior.
The director of ABPA Ariel Mendes noted that it is necessary to react in an articulated way to avoid the loss of hard-won markets in Brazil. Europe and Asia are the first continents that will be targets of market recovery actions.
The motivation for the creation of the Committee is the fact that poultry and pig companies have faced difficulties since August of last year. The picture worsened in the last two months of 2017, when several companies were unable to export to Europe. In the same period, Russia, which represented a large buyer of meat products, suspended imports. At that moment there is no forecast of resumption of these markets.
At the same time, supply of maize – the main input of the chain – presents distortions caused by the retention of inventories by large grain farmers for speculative purposes, which increases their cost and makes poultry and pork production more expensive. The herd permanently housed in Brazil is almost 520 million birds, which requires colossal volumes of the grain for its maintenance.