Poland, as a world leader in poultry production, closely follows all activities that go towards raising production standards. There is no shortage of these, what environment accompanies them and what can they lead to? We talk about all this with Dariusz Goszczyński, president of the board of the National Poultry Council – IG.
– Food security is not a given once and for all. At the moment, when it comes to poultry farming, European poultry farming, our self-sufficiency is at the level of 113%, so we have a slight margin. We are able to satisfy ourselves, our needs. However, there are many voices, intensive campaigns of pseudo-ecological organizations that directly call for the elimination of animal production in the European Union. Such petitions have already been submitted. Under this pressure, the European Commission decided to revise many regulations, including those related to welfare. In the European Union, we are already dealing with the most restrictive and very precisely described requirements regarding welfare, but not only various other branches of aspects related to animal production, and that is very good. We have no problem with this, with this. We just have to be aware that each subsequent increase in these requirements will result in, on the one hand, an increase in production costs, and on the other hand, an increase in the impact on the environment.
Was it supposed to be better?
These are such clever moves by pseudo-ecological organizations in order to, on the one hand, increase the requirements in one area and cause us to be in a much worse position than we are now, for example in the environmental area and we will be subject to pressure from that side. If we were to accept the expectations of pseudo-ecological organizations, we would have to build many more new facilities. In reality, this would lead to a decrease in production and we would very quickly realize that we are no longer self-sufficient and that we have to import. I hope that this will be stopped and reflected on, but the first information from the European Commission was very worrying. All this would lead to the extinction of animal production in the European Union. On the other hand, all imports from countries that have lower production conditions would be increased. We will be very happy to help these organizations, we will appeal to you, fight, get involved so that other countries, for example Brazil, Chile, Thailand, or Ukraine, match this European level. What is very worrying, what we cannot agree to as a European animal production sector, is that in the European Union our breeders are being offered increased requirements, while at the same time imported products are not required to meet the same requirements. In this way, we are unable to stay on the market in the long term, especially since this import is constantly increasing, including from Brazil. We all know how it looks in Ukraine. Recent years have seen a very dynamic, drastic increase in the import of poultry meat and eggs from this country to the European Union, so we have to see all this, we have to consider all this when making decisions of this type.
The regulation on deforestation and forest degradation is planned to come into force. Imported goods should not encourage deforestation, in short, this is especially true in the feed industry, especially soy, there is also beef, chocolate and other goods. What is happening on the market now? Should we be concerned about feed supplies, their prices, what next?
This is another example where something looks good on a political level, maybe it serves some noble purposes, but then its implementation causes huge chaos, huge uncertainty. Regulations have been adopted that products imported to the European Union should not come from areas affected by deforestation or deforestation. The general postulate is very noble. The European Commission has committed to preparing guidelines on how to implement these regulations, how to apply them. The regulations are to come into force in December 2024, i.e. in a few months, and to this day the European Commission has not issued these guidelines. Both entrepreneurs and member states do not know how to proceed, and the regulations come into force in a few months. International trade is not trade from one day to the next, it is trade well in advance. Now all those involved in trade, even in feed, do not know what to expect in the European Union. And now all organizations, including the National Poultry Council, together with colleagues from other organizations, are appealing for an extension of the entry into force of this requirement. This is also what Copa-Cogeca is demanding, and what other EU organisations are demanding. The European Commission has so far seemed to be deaf to this matter, I know that at the moment there is a reorganisation, new people are being appointed, but we cannot say: let's wait a moment, a few more months, because the commission needs more time to sort itself out, only then will it make a decision. This is not the way to work, so it is a very big problem for us.
Feed costs will increase – can we say that today? And the costs of meat sold in stores?
When we impose additional requirements related to certification, after all, we have to identify all the plots from which soy or other products will come, after all, all this has to be monitored, checked. This is of course associated with costs, it will be translated into feed prices, the price of feed will be translated throughout the production chain into the price of animal production and so on. Here again we come to our position in the world, which on the one hand we are very happy about, but on the other hand we are worried about how we will be able to compete with the United States, with Brazil and with other countries that do not impose these requirements on themselves.
Competition is an important topic, but here, across our eastern border, there is a huge, efficient, dynamic competitor – Ukraine. It is doing great in poultry production. How do you see the arrangement of these two markets, Polish and Ukrainian?
I think that we need to approach this sector by sector. Each sector has a slightly different situation, and these relations look different. We have had experience with this giant entity for quite a long time. Many years ago, we experienced that this very entity, having a quota of 40,000 tonnes per year, decided that it had to somehow circumvent this quota. In connection with this, it became famous for the fact that chicken breast meat contained bones in order to use other customs codes and not fall under these limits. In other words: it cheated and used tricks in order to have unlimited access to this market. It took the European Commission a long time, probably over two years, to think about how to deal with this problem. The solution was to increase Ukraine's quota from 40,000 to 90,000 tonnes. Now, at a time when, due to the ongoing war, it is necessary to help Ukraine, which we absolutely agree with, it has to be done. The EU borders were opened, and then this entity, let's add, registered in Cyprus, in the context of this aid to Ukraine, was given unlimited access to the EU market and of course decided to use it with all its might. 2023 is already over 230 thousand tons compared to 90 thousand tons. This shows how much exports to the EU have increased, which has caused major market disruptions. Exports to the EU do not directly concern Poland, as is the case with grains, they concern the entire EU market, because this export takes place to the Netherlands, where this company has its plants and goods from the Netherlands are distributed throughout the European Union. French, Dutch, Spanish and Polish producers suffer equally. Therefore, the European Commission has also noticed this phenomenon, this situation. That is why we are glad that in 2024 the regulation was changed and a limit of 137 thousand tons is introduced. From what I understand, this limit will be exhausted soon, and there was great dissatisfaction on the Ukrainian side.
Why?
Because these huge quantities that were introduced last year, on the one hand, served to build the position of this company, which it also reported. In recent publications we read that this company achieved record profits, we always remember that it is registered in Cyprus. It increases its area by 400 thousand hectares.
Does it raise production standards?
On the one hand, there are certain declarations, but of course we know that these declarations are to calm the markets. However, there is a big problem with the supervision system itself, this is a country that is currently in a state of war.
But we have our own supervision, we have borders, it is still a third country for us.
We expect this, that this border supervision is very meticulous, that we have certainty that what reaches the European Union is safe, because this is a matter of consumers, certainty that consumers receive what they should receive, this is also a matter of image, because after all, consumers are not able to recognize whether it is meat from Ukraine, Poland or France. Hence the anger on the part of the Ukrainian producer in connection with the implementation of restrictions, because these huge quantities were used to build reference values during accession negotiations. After all, we are before the discussion on the conditions under which Ukraine is to be joined to the European Union, but also on the establishment of transitional periods and the establishment of limits on the amounts that will be introduced, that could be introduced to the European Union market. 90 thousand tons, and 230 thousand tons – this looks completely different. The idea was to show that historically we have introduced such quantities and that this should be the benchmark, we should refer to these quantities, so it was a conscious move to work out the best possible position for ourselves in accession negotiations. On our part, of course, this cooperation must exist, because we cannot imagine simply closing the border, that is not the point. The point is to do it in such conditions that, on the one hand, Ukraine can export, but on the other hand, this export does not cause disruptions on the EU market.
All these are big, global issues. However, looking at our market, there is a lot of talk about Salmonella. In fact, Poland dominates in notifications in RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed), almost half of the notifications from month to month come from Poland. Will this topic finally be sorted out in poultry farming?
Salmonella has always been associated with poultry production, not only in Poland, but also in Europe and around the world. To look at statistics, we have to go back to the fact that last year we produced over 3.3 million tons, the French and Germans were next, with production at the level of 1.6-1.7 million. We produce a lot, we send a lot, hence the number of notifications may be higher, although each case is an unnecessary case that should not happen, that we do not want. However, I try to look at it all critically, to understand where it all comes from. Salmonella control programs are operating in Poland. It is good that we have programs, that more and more companies are offering solutions to reduce the occurrence of Salmonella. For example, there are colonizing preparations, e.g. bacteriophages. Such preparations, which did not exist a few years ago, which are not even in the testing phase at the moment, but are already offered on the market, which certainly help to reduce the disease. We collect all these things, we also organize meetings, workshops, we collect international experiences, we look at how other countries are coping, because it is not the case that any country has been able to eliminate this phenomenon 100%. Each such case is very widely publicized in the media. There was a lot of talk about Great Britain, while now we learn that Great Britain itself has punished a company that falsified its Salmonella results. This shows that this is a broad, general problem. We strive to ensure that there are as few such cases as possible, preferably none at all, we are glad that science is also following this, responding and proposing newer and better solutions. From the very beginning, we also postulated the introduction of additional solutions that would provide assurance to farmers, I am thinking here of insurance. This is what happened. As part of the risk management activity, insurance subsidies were introduced under the KPS. 70% of the insurance premium is paid in order to give the breeder the certainty that if he has such a case, he will not be afraid to act as he should in such a situation and that he will have a guaranteed limitation of economic losses. This insurance system works, the subsidies work. However, as the largest producer in the EU, as a powerful exporter, we are aware of how it is. How important this element is and how it can negatively affect and destroy many efforts, because we are also responsible for image activities, for promotional activities and we absolutely want these cases to simply not happen.
