By Arnaud Thierry-Mieg, news reporter
Jorge de Saja, Director General of Cesfac (the Spanish compound feed association) told Feedinfo that Spanish feed market players don’t expect that the closure of the grain corridor by Russia will have a major impact on prices or on the availability of feed raw materials in Spain.
Jorge de Saja estimated that Spain currently has sufficient feed raw materials and alternative origins to meet the needs of the domestic feed industry, regardless of yesterday's events. He pointed out that paradoxically, and although the Spanish animal feed industry is one of the largest in Europe, Spain is structurally deficient in cereals, so its business model is based on systematic imports of raw materials from other European and non-European origins.
De Saja remarked that this year's Spanish cereal harvests are low, possibly the worst in the last 25 years, which makes the structural imports even more necessary on the condition that logistics function optimally. The situation would have been different if the news had come six months or more ago, at a time when there was not so much physical availability of alternative origins, he said.
De Saja went on to say that, fortunately, the Russian decision regarding the Ukrainian corridor coincides with a period of ample availability of raw materials in the world markets to meet the needs of the Spanish industry and European livestock farming. In his opinion, the news from Russia will not have a general impact on prices or on the availability of raw materials.
