Angelique Verschelde-Dobbels, chairwoman of the EPP Belgium branch welcomed over 400 participants to the International PigEvent at the eve of EuroTier 2014. Three speakers from China, Brasil and Russia – representing nearly 60% of the world’s pig production – were talking about the main chances and challenges for pig production in their countries.

All of them are “big players” on the global market. They increased their own production within the last and also in the upcomimg years, but especially China and Russia are (still) depending on import of pork products.

Due to the ban for European pork the import structure in Russia changed immense within the last year and one of the “winners” was Brasil who raised the market share up to 70%. This led to a strong increase of pig prices in Brasil, but producers there already know that this will be only a flash. Helmut Ehlen, Vice Predident of DLG, finally concluded that pig producers all over the world have to act also in future with volatile markets and that pig business will be more and more a global one.

The International PigEvent was organised by EuroTier, EPP e.V., ZDS e.V. and agribenchmark. Attendees can ask for the sheets of the speakers via the EPP head office.