Brussels spends extra to promote EU meat sales in face of Russian ban
They will benefit from multi-million euro sales and marketing programmes, 50% funded by the EU, announced on Tuesday (21 April). National governments and industry organisations make up the match-funding.
The €130 million-total programmes announced cover a wide range of food products and will last for three years. They are especially focused on extra-EU markets, which is unusual. A European Commission note said this was partly because of an additional €30m of help announced by Brussels last year for food producers, after Russia decided to ban EU-made food imports last August.
EU agriculture and rural development commissioner Phil Hogan said: "Promoting EU agri-food products on global markets is a strong and proactive response to the Russian ban. The increased funding for promotion measures will continue to contribute to the success story of the growth in exports of high-quality EU agri-food products on the world market."
Looking at the meat programmes, the €8.59m being spent by the EU on the Polish meat sector will promote beef, veal, pigmeat and poultry sales in Africa, south-east Asia, North America, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Belarus and New Zealand. Funding will be funnelled through partners including producer organisations the PMA and UPEMI (Unia Producentów i Pracodawców Przemysłu Mięsnego) and a consortium, including Srwrp, Grupy Ogrodnicze, Polskie Sadownictwo and PZHiPBM.
Also, Quality Meat Scotland will receive €2.3m in EU funding to promote sales in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and across the UK.
Meanwhile, the €1.8m being spent by the EU on the Austrian meat sector will promote domestic sales and another major EU financing package of €1.6m will be paid to promote Belgian veal, beef and pigmeat in Australia, China, South Korea, Japan and south-east Asia. The money will be routed through partner VLAM, Flanders’ Agricultural Marketing Board, which promotes Flemish food products in Belgium and abroad.
Finally, Estonian beef cattle promotion body Liivimaa Lihaveis will receive €600,752 to promote sales in Latvia and Sweden.
The Commission note stressed that the focus on non-EU markets in these programmes was a "significant change in comparison to the previous wave of programmes, where nearly two-thirds of the schemes targeted the internal [EU] market". It said that, despite Russia’s ban, "total EU agri-food exports to third countries increased by 2% in value in the period August-December 2014 compared to the same period the previous year".
