At the end of September, Danish, Dutch and German sow feeders’ communities of interest held an emergency session in Germany. One of the major issues discussed about there was the disastrous situation the sow feeders are presently facing. In each of the three countries, the sow feeders have their backs to the wall in view of the lowness of piglet prices and the immense increase of feed costs. Currently, the sow feeders go through a loss amounting to EUR 25 per piglet. Farmers feeding 200 sows on regular basis thus must cope with a monthly total loss of about EUR 10 000. Many sow feeders assumedly won’t be able to keep pace any longer before long. A lot of farmers already have sows slaughtered in order to reduce stock and thus be able to decrease financial losses they would otherwise be sure to suffer on.

Pig feeders in the Netherlands and Denmark in particular have specialised more and more in feeding sows over the past years and in exporting piglets toward Germany. 50 percent of all sows held in Denmark are already kept at farms with more than 500 animals! In Germany, 50 percent of all sows, after all, are found in small farms feeding less than 200 sows. The situation among sow feeders in Germany has meanwhile been tightened drastically as a result of structural differences like these. Subsequent to large quantities of Dutch and Danish piglets having been imported into Germany, considerable price declines were observed to occur on the domestic piglet market. Thus, many farms have been forced into a threatening situation.

Increasing worries are voiced by the producers with regard to what is happening on the soy and crop markets. Apart from globally increasing prices being demanded for these products, the high-feed-costs situation is getting even worse, resulting in competitive disadvantage to be coped with by the European pig feeders, with the EU imposing higher import duties and showing a restrictive attitude toward genetic engineering.