Italy pig production puts off — permanently?
For decades Italy has made itself known with the famous Parma hams all over the world. But the Italian pig production no longer meets the needs of its own. And the famous ham lives more of its traditional reputation as of the production.
To establish the True Parma ham , you need pigs in a weight of 150 kg live weight and more, to ensure the typical ham weights. It is very expensive to produce such pigs, and the inevitably increasing Bacon shares no longer correspond to consumer habits, not even the Italians themselves. So also the production and the consumption of this heavy pigs go back.
She sucked. easy pigs in the usual 100 to 120 kg weight class Germany last but not least are in sharp competition for the products from the North.
The decisive impetus to lower further the Italian pig production, began with the reduced Sauenhhaltung. First still pig imports from the Netherlands and Denmark itself were used to compensate, but transport costs are very expensive.
The Italian pig production is concentrated with 87% of the animals on Northern Italy with its focus in the region of Lombardy. Many small part-time farms are typical of the production structures on the one hand and on the other side of large stocks. Between 200 to under 1000 animals lacking the so-called central block of stock size class . The small stocks significantly decrease, while the large units develop little dynamics.
In Central and southern Italy are the remaining 13%, of pigs by rd 70% of the pig farmers in Italy mostly for the purpose of supplying equity held. However, the population in the course of the generation-induced structure change go back again. New buildings for the purpose of compensation are rare.
The result of this is itself accelerating reduction of degree of self-sufficiency, can be appreciated for 2014 to below 60% .
The increasing imports from the Nordic countries are in turn also not so great that the consequences of the Russian import lock this can be compensated. The Italian net import demand in 2013 amounted to approximately 500,000 t and should have increased for 2014 just to projected 10%.
The question of how the Italian pig production evolves in the coming years will be exciting. It remains in the decline or stabilize the production again?
