The Serbian poultry sector has not yet met the EU's standards

Poultry sector still to meet EU requirements   

Serbia cannot currently export chicken eggs to the European Union, nor transport them through the EU’s territory to third countries, said the Director of the Poultry Business Association, Mr. Rade Skoric. Serbia will have to fulfill the conditions set by the EU regarding animal health, food safety, animal welfare conditions and Serbia will need to open a control laboratory, explained Mr Skoric and reports the news portal Biznis.rs.  

According to Mr. Skoric, in order to meet the requirements of the regulations on animal welfare, farmers will have to replace the existing cages with more comfortable ones, for which the deadline has been extended several times, and the latest one expires at the end of December this year.

Eggs in Serbia are cheaper than in the EU. In Croatia, for example, price per egg is approximately €0.3, and the price in Austria and Hungary is similar. As Skoric says, eggs are now exported from Serbia to Bosnia & Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and recently, after 30 years, to Albania. At the end of last year, about 800 thousand eggs were exported to Equatorial Guinea. Transport was done by plane because the country had a shortage, but, as he said, such transport is not profitable.

Mr. Skoric added that egg production in Serbia is big and there is no reason for eggs to become more expensive right before Easter, adding that even if that happens, the price increase would be symbolic. He added that egg price at the farm is about €0.12, and in stores from €0.18 to €0.22. The 30% increase in egg prices compared to last year is the result, as he explained, of a drastic increase in feed prices (up by 80%) and a large drop in egg prices during the coronavirus pandemic.

There are 1.100 registered chicken farms in Serbia with about 4.5 million chickens, and there are another 3 million chickens on household “mini-farms”. The production of smaller farms, which were shut down due to the low price of eggs during the pandemic, was compensated by increased capacity of larger farms, Skoric explained.

Quantities of imported milk higher than export

During 2022, the amount of imported milk in Serbia once again exceeded its export, and the export decreased by €9 million in just a few years. The main reasons for the drop in production are the poor conditions in the animal husbandry sector (specifically in dairy cow farming) that has been going on for years and temporary increases in milk production costs, which also meant a drop in production.

According to data for 2022 provided by the Republic Statistical Office, 42.220 tons of milk and dairy products (a category consisting of milk and cream, non-concentrated, without sugar) were imported into Serbia, worth €28.6 million. Throughout 2022, 28.900 tons of milk and dairy products, worth €16.92 million, were exported from Serbia. The calculation indicates that the import of milk and dairy products was about 13.300 tons higher than the Serbian export, and that the trade deficit for these foodstuffs reached €11.68 million.

Serbia mostly imported milk and dairy products from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, and Hungary. According to RZS data, in 2022, Serbia exported 1.888 tons of milk and milk products to Bosnia and Herzegovina, worth €685.000. In the same period, ten times more milk and dairy products were imported from Bosnia and Herzegovina, 18.823 tons with a total value of €11.995 million.

Last year, Serbia imported 8.204 tons of milk from Poland, but did not export a single liter of this commodity back to the country. Only imports from Poland costed local economy more than €6 million. It was milk from Poland that seemingly "flooded" stores in Serbia in August last year, after several months of shortages. Local dairy farmers spilled Polish milk during protests, which they organized due to the poor situation in cattle breeding sector.

The Ministry of Agriculture has introduced import taxes for dairy products coming from the EU. However, Dejan Trajković, a milk producer, estimated that the levies will not protect domestic producers, because they do not apply to the import of milk from Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country where the largest Serbian dairy processors have their plants. Imlek dairy plant has a dairy plant in Kozarska Dubica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Meggle in Bihać, also in Bosnia and Herzegovina, so they will again import products from the EU through them. Therefore, “absolutely nothing was done," explained Dejan Trajkovic for the TechnolgijaHrane.com portal.

On the other hand, representatives of retail chains are asking dairy processors to lower the price of their products and make it the same as the price of dairy products imported from the EU as of April 1, states Mr. Vukasin Bacina, a representative of milk producers from Banat and reports TV N1. As he points out, the price of raw milk is still declining, and dairy farmers are calling on the state to introduce additional levies on cheese imports as soon as possible. If the state does not introduce levies of €2.8 per kilogram within  next 10 days, milk processors will lower the price of raw milk and stop buying milk, causing many employees in dairy plants to lose their jobs.

Dairy farmers have been unhappy with the state policy in dairy sector for months now. They are warning the public and the government that they will be forced to sell their cows to slaughterhouses if nothing changes. Farmer Jugoslav Tomic from Stajicevo, Vojvodina, has been spilling 2.5 tons of cow's milk per day since last weekend. He said he couldn’t sell it, as no dairy processor was interested in buying the milk. Tomic told Autonomija portal that he would be forced to start slaughtering cattle because he produces 2.5 tons of raw milk a day, but has no one to sell it to. Tomic established his farm in 2005 and has 300 heads of cattle today, out of which 150 are dairy cows. He stated that he wanted to donate milk, but that it was not possible, since the law does not allow raw milk to be donated. “In order to give it as a gift, we would have to pasteurize it first, which represents an additional cost,” Tomic explained. He specified that in the last seven years, he has been producing 1 million liters of milk per year. “For the last two months, no one wanted to buy the milk. If the government does not do something in due time, we will have to close the farm. We have no other choice,” Tomic said.

Dairy processor Mr Tomic was delivering milk to stated for the national broadcaster that they were  willing to pay to him the same price they were paying to other dairy farmers (€0.6/l) but Mr. Tomic refused the offer.

On the top of the price dairy processors are paying, farmers receive direct payment from the state as support per liter €0.12/l . Besides the direct payments farmers receive annual payment per head of cattle (€256) ; €855 for keeping heifer for further production; 60% reimbursement for purchasing pregnant heifers; priority when leasing state own land etc.

32% annual price increase of agricultural and fish products

Fish and fish products in Serbia were almost 60% more expensive in January this year than in the same month in 2022, the Statistical Office of Serbia (RZS) reports. As specified, agricultural and fish products in January 2023 were more expensive by 32.3% than at the same time last year, while the average price of fish & fish products alone was higher by 59.5%. Observed by main product groups, compared to the same month of the previous year, the largest price increase was recorded in the following groups: cereals (21.9%), livestock & poultry (26%), eggs (54.5%), animal products (71%) and milk (75.1%). At the same time, the prices of agricultural and fish products in January this year, compared to December 2022, dropped by 2.4% on average. Observed by the main product groups, compared to the previous month, the biggest price drop was recorded in the following groups: livestock & poultry (7%) and industrial crops (2.6%). The RZS stated that the prices of agricultural and fish products in 2022 were higher by 25.7% on average than in 2021.

Purchase of domestic powdered milk subsidized

At the proposal of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Serbian government adopted a regulation to subsidize the confectionery industry by paying €6 EUR per kilogram of domestic powdered milk purchased, said the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Agriculture, Marijan Risticevic. He pointed out that it was an excessive amount, as well as that the protection of powdered milk producers could have been regulated differently. “Recently, the government, at the proposal of the Ministry of Agriculture, imposed levies on import of milk and dairy products, and on that occasion, when the levies were already being imposed, an import tax on powdered milk could also have been imposed. In addition to protecting domestic production, this would have provided income for the government and not the expenses that will arise from the new regulation,” said Risticevic in a statement.

He believes that due to the lack of at least 40.000 cows, Serbia does not have milk surplus necessary for processing into powdered milk. “I believe that when I compare the protection of cheese producers with that of confectioners, where the former are protected with €0.25 per kg, and the latter, including milk powder producers, with €6 per kg, that it is humiliating for cheese producers because a kilogram of cheese and a kilogram of powdered milk requires the same amount of milk (10-12 liters). From the text of the regulation, it is not clear how, apart from the declaration, it will be determined whether the powdered milk is produced from domestic or imported milk, and it is very possible to repack cheaper imported powdered milk,” explains Risticevic and reports RTV

Green electricity to still be paid by the citizens              

In case the Serbian Assembly adopts the draft Law on the Use of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in the form approved by the government, consumers will still pay electric energy at a price higher than the market price, like before(even though feed-in tariffs for big producers of electricity from renewable energy sources are cancelled). Consumers take the brunt of the cost due to the fact that national Electric Power Company (EPS) pays more for “green” electricity and since 2016, EPS has collected €21.3 million for electricity from renewable energy sources from consumers.

Amendments to the Law should change that, because guaranteed prices of electricity from RES will be granted at auctions. That doesn’t mean the citizens won’t pay the fee for stimulating the production of energy from renewable energy sources anymore, because the system of feed-in tariffs will still apply for facilities with power less than 500 kW reports daily Danas.