Chickens coming home to roost

 

Boo yoo! Who’d have thunk it? Capitalism is unfair! French poultry farmers are clucking annoyed because Ukrainian chickens are flooding the market at half the cost.

Quelle horreur! The largest Ukrainian poultry ‘manufacturer’ is making profits from this blatant undercutting of EU chicken commodity suppliers.

One hesitates to imagine the conditions in which Ukrainian chickens are factory farmed but it’s hard, given the cost of living crisis across the capitalist world at present to blame consumers for preferring to buy cheaper food when it’s available.

One can only speculate whether Ukrainian workers involved in this industry are being more exploited than EU workers but it certainly sounds like someone needs a lesson in Marxian economics.

Note that ‘the European Commission imposed “temporary preventive measures” on Ukrainian imports to ease the impact of plummeting prices in neighbouring EU countries’. Cheaper food? Forget it! More important to Got to protect capitalists profits.

France’s poultry farmers are suffering losses due to “unfair competition” with Ukrainian producers, chairman of the Association of Chicken Meat Suppliers Anvol, Jean-Michel Schaeffer, told Le Figaro on Wednesday.

He complained that the influx of cheap Ukrainian pIn May, the European Commission imposed “temporary preventive measures” on Ukrainian imports to ease the impact of plummeting prices in neighbouring EU countries’.oultry is hitting local producers, which is typically a family business in France and many other EU countries.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian exporters belong to a different “category.” The profit from chicken sales goes not to the “Ukrainian people,” but to the country’s largest poultry manufacturer, MHP, Schaeffer emphasized, and urged the European Commission to protect domestic producers.

“Before this unfortunate conflict [in Ukraine], we were importing about 10,000 tons of poultry per month, and now we are importing 20,000 or more tons per month. It’s really a shock,” he said.

He said that the arrival of the giant Ukrainian supplier immediately destabilized the EU’s single market. Producers from the war-torn country are benefiting from low costs due to the absence of trade barriers and the lack of EU production standards in Ukraine.

One kilogram of chicken meat from French producers costs about €4.80 (a bit over $5), while one kilogram of Ukrainian poultry costs €2.40, which represents “unfair competition,” according to Schaeffer.

Farmers across the bloc are also suffering from the unprecedented surge in Ukrainian produce “be it the Germans, the Dutch, the Poles – everyone is in the same situation, when this flow of Ukrainian chickens destabilizes the entire market,” he said.

Last year, the EU lifted tariffs and quotas for exports of Ukrainian agricultural products to help Kiev financially. However, EU nations have faced domestic protests as farmers have struggled to compete with cheaper imports.

Poland was the first to ban imports of Ukrainian produce, followed by Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia.

In May, the European Commission imposed “temporary preventive measures” on Ukrainian imports to ease the impact of plummeting prices in neighbouring EU countries’.

The EU ban on Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunflower seed to Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Bulgaria is set to end on September 15'.