Position at risk
Is Poland pushing Dutch pig sector out of EU-5?
Many countries, including large pig countries such as Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, had fewer pigs in their stables in December. However, Poland is the country that is compensating for a shrinking pig population in Europe, because there are pig farmers there with expansion fever. This can be deduced from Eurostat figures.
Compared to December 2015, the gap between Spain and Germany, the number one and two in Europe, has grown to almost 2 million pigs in the past year. In total, the Spanish pig herd has grown by 3 percent to 29,2 million pigs. Germany has just 1,4 percent fewer pigs and about 60.000 million pigs spread over roughly 27,2 pig farmers. On balance, the pig stock in the EU 25 has shrunk by 0,7 percent to 132,7 million pigs. Poland is the country that attracts attention and has a total of 11,1 million pigs. A sudden growth of 5 percent. The Netherlands shrank by 2016 percent in 4,6 to a total of 11,8 million animals.
The sow herd in Europe has shrunk by 1,3 percent to 7,6 million pigs. Here too, Poland is a positive exception, as the sow herd there has increased by 5,4 percent to 859.000 sows. The Netherlands, on the other hand, is shrinking by just under three percent and has just over 1 million sows. With a pig herd of 11,8 million pigs, the Netherlands is currently last in the EU-5, in other words the countries that are heavyweight in terms of price formation. Given the rapid rise of Poland and the declining pig sector in the Netherlands, Poland is on a collision course to take this place.
In general, the Polish government is mainly concerned with stimulating a growing livestock. Manure regulations, for example, weigh less heavily, while expansion plans there are not limited by complicated environmental permits, as is the case here in the Netherlands. Government policy in the Netherlands is on the contrary regulating and stimulating and it rewards quitters with a premium. A changing of the guard in the short to medium term is therefore not an unrealistic scenario. Of course, belonging to the EU-5 is more of a 'psychological thing', but the country with the most animals does have the most market power. In the end, the figures do not lie and countries such as the Netherlands and Germany, at the expense of Spain and Poland, are losing ground in Europe.
Other red numbers have been measured in Italy, Belgium and Romania where both the pig herd and the sow herd are declining. Of the 10 largest pig countries in Europe, only Spain, Poland and the United Kingdom write green figures. Figures from France are not yet known.
Wouter Job
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