Copa Cogeca’s pigmeat group is meeting in Brussels today to debate the “bad situation” affecting the European industry, ahead of next Monday’s mass agriculture protest in the Belgian capital.
With a projected 4000 farmers and 1000 tractors set to take part in the September 7 demonstration, Copa Cogeca is holding preparation talks with various sector groups, with the key focus today being on pigs.
With regular tweets being issued from the meeting, the main warning notes so far have been sounded by representatives of Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias de España, the Spanish farm coop body, whose spokesperson has said that if short term support measures aren’t taken by the European Commission next week, then the coming months will be “very difficult” indeed.
Spanish delegates added that they believed countries with big Agri-food cooperatives were currently supporting the pigmeat and milk sectors better than those where coops were less in evidence.
In addition to calling for immediate EC action on the pigmeat crisis, the Spanish team also urged producers across Europe to keep “fighting unfair food chain practices”, working through individual country coops to strength the position of farmers within the food chain.
Headline image shows the Copa Cogeca pig group in session today