Meat, between raw and undercooked

After a year of pandemic, the sector rancher from the province of Castellón continues to try to emerge afloat and looks to the future with concern. The Covid pandemic that has sunk the economy in all corners of the world also poses a severe threat to a sector that during these last twelve months has suffered ups and downs and has seen some subsectors defend themselves better than others.

Without a doubt, the one who has best withstood the harshness of this year is the pig sector, whose meat has continued to be consumed on a regular basis during the pandemic. In addition, there is another very important factor, which is the swine fever in China, which has allowed this giant to export to a large extent and has allowed the sector to maintain a significant volume of sales,” says Carles Peris, Secretary General of the Unio de Llauradors.

At the other end is the res brava sector which, according to Peris, is â € œthe best example of what I call the triple 0, that is, 0 activity, 0 income and 0 aid. Without any type of bullfighting celebration, the farmers of this type of animal look with great concern to the future because they do not know if the municipalities will resume the festive activity in a near time. At least they have a complicated 5 or 6 months left with a lot of uncertainty, explains the head of the Unio. Some of them, faced with this scenario, have already had to sacrifice cattle.

The sheep and goat sector it was able to access aid at the beginning of the pandemic and after overcoming some difficult first months, the final stretch of the year allowed the market to recover taking advantage of the Christmas holidays. Â «It has been a bit like the trend experienced this year. After a very abrupt fall during the hardest months of confinement, then little by little aid arrived and things improved somewhat. Now we are in another difficult time again, ”Peris acknowledges.

Avian sector

More complicated is the situation of the poultry sector that first managed to avoid the blow since it is a meat with very good output but this last closure of the hostelería you are doing a lot of damage. Nowadays many professionals eat out of the house and resort to the hotel business. In most menus, chicken meat is not lacking and now people are forced to turn to food from home. That in some cases, worse is a trucker or transporter who does not know where he will be tomorrow, assures Francis Ferreres, livestock technician at La Unió.

Also the number of incoming animals received by fattening farms has been reduced so in many cases the solution is to freeze meat, which will have to be released later. For all these reasons, the future of the poultry sector is expected to be complicated in 2021, which has not yet completed two months.

He is not going through a good time either the dairy sector which has agreed to some aid but has not managed to overcome something that the beef sector has been able to do to a greater or lesser extent thanks to exports to Arab countries.

Regarding the sector cunícola, it has also been forced to reduce production and with tighter prices.

In addition, farmers have had to face expenses derived from the pandemic, such as anti-coronavirus measures or the increase in feed prices. All of this still increases the difficulty of trying to get ahead of a sector that, like everyone else, looks to the development of the pandemic to take flight. Â «Covid sets the dynamics because right now there is a lot of uncertainty about whether you can sell or not. And with the hostelry closed, everything is much more complicated, Peris concludes.

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