Somehow it became the custom that we strongly believe that it can’t be worse than in Ukraine and better than abroad. It also concerns pig production, particularly the questions of state support. However, as it turned out: grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. After speaking to experts of EU countries it emerged that there are also a lot of «hidden rocks» there and the situation differs from country to country. So let’s clear up where pig producers have better relations with government!

Government support of pig producers in EU can be relatively divided into two parts. The first is general support for all farmers regardless to country and their activity profile. The second is specific programs that governments of EU countries realize in pork production sector or livestock sector in general.

EU Support

There is a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in European Union. Its main principles were stated at the end of the 50s of the last century, but since that time CAP was reformed several times. In this article we’ll dwell on an issue that’s important for pig production — the single area payment scheme (SPS). According to the scheme, all the farmers, including pork producers, get subsidies for the number of hectares of cultivated land. In every case the size of the subsidy depends on the number of factors. Besides, every country can choose one of the three approaches to the single area payment scheme: basic or historical, regional or flat-rate, and mixed or «hybrid». In practice it means that a single payment for a hectare may vary between 100 and 500 €. Indeed this subsidy is the basic forms of EU support that pig producers get, although there are others:

a) Aid for Private Storage,

b) Export refunds,

c) Import levies

d) a fund to cover costs of outbreaks of some contagious diseases (like classical swine fever), from which culling costs and market value of culled animals are paid (shared with the national governments).

At the same time every EU country prefer different support measures (Germany investment support; Poland breeding support; Netherlands innovation support; Belgium investment support; Denmark infrastructure support and so on.

1) What do governments of EU countries do?

2) Which country helps pig producers best?

You can find answers for these and other questions in the full version of the interview in the magazine «Profitable Pig Production», № 3 (15) 2013.