Pigs from Europe represent 70% of Romania's necessary

If the Romanian pig is on disappearance, in the country’s swineries being about 1,3 million animals, the number of abattoirs, also modernized according to EU’s norms, has increased unjustified. Most of these stop the engines even for weeks, the cause being generated by the lack of raw materials.

Even if the annual production of pork is much under the level recorded in the communist period, Romania importing at the moment over 70% of the needed domestic consumption, the statistics show that at the chapter abattoirs for sacrifice we are… useless well.

The European norms have already closed the shutters over most of these, while over the other ones rules the idea of being closed, the reasons being given by the price for the raw materials, and also by the profitableness in decline of this business. Although, for the small entrepreneurs, owners of pig abattoirs, things seem to be different, as long as they have adapted to the conditions imposed by the European Union and they have made modernization investments amounted to hundreds of thousand euro.

If till 1989, Romania exported pork and products derived from pork both in East and over the Ocean, the production from this sector touching at that moment almost 500 thousand tones, today our country can boast with only 1.3 million pigs, in the swineries. The amount of porcine is completed by other few millions that are in the rural households, total insufficiently, if we report to the annual consumption that our country records, of over 12 million pigs. “The domestic production has drastically decreased and just 30% from the demand is represented by pigs of Romanian origin”, Sorin Minea, president of the Romanian Meat Association (RMA) stated.

He also considers that the reduced production recorded in this industrial sector has also generated the abolishment of some abattoirs, even if they were modernized according to the European standards. “There are abattoirs that don’t operate for entire weeks because they don’t have raw materials”, Minea added, that completes the idea that Romania isn’t affected by the lack of abattoirs and “at the moment the one from Alexandria, with its capacity could stick off all the pigs from the country.”

If in the past, Ilfov district was the main supplier of agricultural zootechny products for the Capital City and had several abattoirs, today it can boast with only one unit of meat industrialization, in Afumati commune. From materials easy of being sterilized, last generation technological line, special equipments for the safety of the food chain and of products’ quality, till the stable, realized according to the norms imposed by the European Union, they have totalized for the abattoir from Afumati investments of over 600 thousand euro.

“I’ve tried to modernize the unit through a SAPARD program, but the consultancy company through the project and its feasibility study raised the investment over 58 billion old lei,” Vasile Cioceanu, manager of the company Papas Turistic Apollo that owns the unit of meat industrialization, said. He says that “the same project, at the same European standard, I have executed on my own, through an investment credit, but for a price four times lower”, and today his abattoir has a capacity of killing 100 animals per day and one of animal accommodation of 200 and sends daily about seven tons of meat for the consumption of population.

From the slaughter line with black iron pipe and walls with potter, the Romanian abattoir has advanced to stable with stainless boxes, thermopan windows, ventilation and shower room for pigs, before these to enter the tunnel towards the stunning box. The slaughtering box is stainless, the walls have thermo isolated panels, the fridge room has stainless doors and the temperature (0- 4 degrees Celsius) from the interior is monitored by computers. But it seems that not even in these European conditions, the domestic pigs don’t assault the Romanian abattoirs, to Afumati reaching only about 20% from the accommodation and killing capacity of the unit.

According to Cioceanu, the supply of the abattoirs with raw material it’s being made with animals especially from the European Union. “Even if the purchase price is relatively equal with the one practiced in the country, we prefer the imports for the better quality of the product”, Cioceanu said. In the context of the drastic decrease of domestic production “I should cross the country for quality animals”, he added.

According to the experts, on the Romanian market of profile there is a disloyal competition between the owners of abattoirs and the graziers, which meanwhile have built their own units for killing animals. The apple of discord is represented by the subvention granted by the state only to the graziers, what makes that in case of the farmers, and abattoir owners, the sale price towards the outlets to be with about 10% lower than the one of whose businesses focuses only on killing the animals.

“Many gain annually from this subvention millions of euro”, Sorin Minea, president of RMA stated. If the proposal of several managers of abattoirs, respective that the state to grant this subvention only to the farmers that don’t own abattoirs, wasn’t taken into account by the Executive, the small industrialists hope that EU will take attitude for regulating the market in domain. “This subvention generated a real scandal and nobody took attitude”, Minea added, from which we find out that the subvention oscillates between 100 and 150 lei for a slaughtered animal, depending of its quality. Reported to the pork’s price per kilo, Minea’s estimations direct to an increase of up to 15% per kilo till the end of this year, the cause being the recent devaluation of the leu in report with the euro.

“Till the Christmas we can assist to a rise in price for one kilo of pork between 10%-15%, the reasons being given by the decreased domestic production, and also by the fluctuation of the European currency in report with the leu”, Sorin Minea, president of RMA mentioned.