The Canadian Pork Council (CPC) is crying foul over a European Union decision to introduce export refunds on pork and pork products.
The export subsidy rate can reach as much as C75 cents per kilogram and are applicable for pork shipped to all export destinations, the CPC says.
“The EU has chosen a method of addressing its pork industry’s economic difficulties that will impose even more extreme hardship than that already being experienced for pork producers elsewhere,” said CPC president Clare Schlegel in a news release.
Pork producers around the globe have been facing higher feed cost, largely credited to enhanced demand for cereal crops from ethanol producers, and lower returns due to a weak U.S. dollar.
The CPC says government subsidies that directly lower export prices are widely viewed as the most trade-distorting support mechanisms.
“Surely the EU can choose an alternative means of assisting its pork farmers which is less trade-distorting and damaging to other countries than export subsidies,” said Schlegel, a Shakespeare, Ont. pork producer.
