Against a backdrop of soaring feed prices, a falling DAPP and the fact that they are losing more than £22 on every pig it’s hardly surprising that pig producer confidence is at a record low – even compared with the crisis-hit days of 2008. That’s the key finding of the latest confidence survey published by BPEX.

 

That lack of confidence, however, is not reflected in other areas of the industry according to the survey. First published in 2006, the annual survey measures confidence throughout the supply chain by examining attitudes towards re-investment.

 

The majority of respondents said it was not lack of access to finance that was the inhibiting factor but uncertainty about the returns. Any investment that was taking place was mostly to improve efficiency or replace aging buildings and equipment rather than increasing the size of the business.

 

On a more positive note, producers, and other parts of supply chain, felt their competitiveness had improved when set against UK, EU and global businesses in the last 12 months.

 

The survey’s main findings are:

• 53% of producers are less confident than they were in 2010
• The pig industry is less optimistic than last year – optimism is at its lowest point since 2008
• 53% expect to make less capital investment
• 48% expect to invest less in plant and machinery
• 90% said that average selling prices have decreased – or at best, stayed the same – over the last three months vs. the same period 12 months ago

 

BPEX head of communications, Andrew Knowles, said: “The survey underlines the crisis as a result of the gap between cost of production and pig prices. The volatility of feed prices looks set to continue for at least the rest of this year and therefore something has to change in the attitude and behaviour of the supply chain if producer confidence is to be restored.”

The survey can be downloaded in its entirety by clicking here

A PDF version can be downloaded by clicking here.