21 June 2022 - Europe has seemingly managed to avoid a shortage of feed, caused by a lack of Ukrainian grain, but some problems are yet to be overcome, FEFAC President Asbjørn Børsting told Feedinfo.
"From what we see, the initial concerns on feed grain availability have fortunately been resolved, as mainly US exports of maize to Southern European countries like Spain, Portugal and Italy helped to relieve market pressure after an initial loss of maize deliveries from Ukraine," he said.
In the meantime, Børsting added, Ukrainian grain exports also picked up again thanks to EU solidarity lanes and match-making initiatives.
In May 2022, FEFAC said that the continuing global grain market rally - fuelled with grain delivery problems from Ukraine and Russia to their customer markets, coupled with animal disease outbreaks - is expected to reduce compound feed demand in the European Union in 2022 by 4 or 5 million tonnes. FEFAC explained that the immediate loss of feed maize, sunflower meal and other feed materials from Ukraine and Russia could only be partially compensated by increased feed imports, mainly from the US and Canada.
"However, there are other challenges linked to supplies of phosphates but also logistical issues with feed additives supplies from China,” Børsting told Feedinfo. “We expect price volatility for feed ingredients to remain high at least until the end of the year as grain exports from Ukraine will remain problematic in the new marketing year.”
According to the FEFAC President, in addition to phosphates, the sourcing of beet pulp might also become a problem due to the recent adoption of sixth package of sanctions against Russia where this feed material was listed. In 2021, the EU imported 727,008 tonnes of beet pulp from Russia, he said.
Given this background, state aid provided to livestock producers who are heavily hit by soaring feed prices is the right decision, Børsting said.
"FEFAC welcomed EU decisions allowing Member States to provide targeted state aid for livestock sectors which are suffering most from high feed prices (e.g. the pig sector) as they cannot pass on extra costs to consumers. We expect that prolongation of state aid provisions will be needed in the future," he commented.