Paul Temple, the association’s new president, will lead calls for the tariffs to be brought back at a Commission advisory meeting in Brussels today, a move that could increase costs for manufacturers reliant on foreign grain supplies.
Grain price
Earlier this month, prices for a ton of bread-making wheat reached €180, representing a considerable fall from the €248 a ton recorded the same time last year, according to the UK-based Home Grown Cereals Authority.
Despite the NFU claims, not all cereal prices have improved, with corn costs, by contrast, remaining high.
The Chicago Board of Trade said at the beginning of September that corn was trading at $210 a ton. This compares to about $100 a ton last year.
European harvest boost
The NFU says that cereal harvests during the current season are expected to be substantially higher than last year, when calls were made to remove tariffs in a bid to relieve supply strain created by manufacturer demand.
“Following a COPA round table, it is clear the 2008 cereals harvest will be substantially larger than 2007, potentially reaching 300m tonnes,” the NFU stated.
However, potential yield improvements for the season have led to concerns that farmers may struggle to meet their own input costs due to the reduced market price.
According to the NFU, like a number of markets in northern Europe, UK harvesting conditions have been set back by wet weather, while producers in the south of the bloc have enjoyed more profitable harvests.
As such, the union hopes to impose restrictions on non-domestically produced cereals to protect its own national supply.
Import tariffs
The Commission first proposed relaxing the additional charges on cereal imports late last year in a bid to ease the commodity price and supply pressure on the European food industry.
Mariann Fishcer Boel, the EU commissioner for agriculture and rural development, said at the time that the move was made in response to an "exceptionally tight situation".