Poland’s beef and dairy producers face difficult season

COVID-19 lockdowns and movement restrictions are placing increased pressure on Poland, the EU’s fourth-largest dairy producer.
calendar icon 18 November 2020
clock icon 2 minute read

According to reporting in the Warsaw Business Journal, Poland’s beef and dairy industry is experiencing setbacks due to COVID-19 restrictions. Coronavirus movement restrictions have made orders from restaurants and hoteliers evaporate, while price fluctuations in commodity markets add to the strain.

The Polish Federation of Cattle Breeders and Milk Producers is encouraging Polish residents to consume more beef and dairy products to keep businesses afloat.

"We want to encourage greater consumption of milk in Poland, but we also want to show consumers that behind the milk they buy in the store is a specific breeder and his work," the Polish Federation of Cattle Breeders and Milk Producers said.

“The coronavirus pandemic has caused very large disturbances in the dairy industry. The slowdown in foreign trade caused the product prices and, at the same time, the prices of the raw material to drop significantly. Prices in the European Union have been on an upward trend since the middle of this year.

"In September, the average price of milk in Poland was PLN 1.38 per litre. We anticipate that these prices will go up at the end of this year, while the pandemic makes the market unpredictable and we do not know what consequences the second wave will bring to our industry,” Dorota Śmigielska, milk market analyst at the Polish Federation of Cattle Breeders and Milk Producers, vice-president of the Milk and Dairy Products Working Group at Copa-Cogeca, said.

The group stresses that the pandemic and subsequent market turbulence are not the only problems that Polish farmers contend with. The industry has also faced severe droughts over the last two years, which increased production costs while negatively affecting milk quality. Milk prices have also remained artificially low – meaning that farmers have been operating at a loss.

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