”The increase in meat prices is not the result of the war in Ukraine, but decades of misguided agricultural policies, incentive payments to fictitious producers, and the fact that buyers have been blackmailing fattening cattle breeders for years, ” Central Bosnian farmers say. All this resulted in the disappearance of villages and farms, so today only a few hundred heads are fattened in this canton. This means that we have only traces of domestic meat, and its price could increase drastically in the following months, Federalna writes.
It is important to mention that the price of meat was not affected by the economic rule of supply and demand, farmers claim, but by the fact that due to the suspension of exports from several European countries – there is simply no meat. ”Official data say that imports last year were seven times higher than meat exports. Domestic production is almost non-existent because the policy of incentives leaves farmers to themselves and the goodwill of the buyers, ” says Selvedin Kasumovic from Han Bila near Travnik, who has 117 head of dairy cows and cattle in his barns: “We were all forced to have our buyers direct the price of ourgoods so that we can follow the procedures imposed on us by the ministry in order to exercise the right to incentives. “
“They either take half of the incentive, ask 250 or 200 BAMfrom the bull, or reduce the purchase price, so people simply stopped producing,” said Amir Bulut, president of the Association of Milk and Meat Producers at Central Bosnia Canton (CBC).
That is why, according to the competent cantonal ministry, there are currently just over six hundred cattle in 12 central Bosnian fattening municipalities, and the president of the Association believes that the number is much lower. So, it is not surprising that, despite the tens of millions of BAM of budget money allocated annually for agriculture, only those who have their own cultivation are privileged and can be sure that they eat homemade and quality food.
“These are indicators from last year – in nine months, about 53 million tons of meat were imported. We do not have our own production at the moment, and those who claim we do – that is not true, ” claims Bulut.
Kasumovic added that his family eats homemade food: “And the rest – now there are kangaroos, there are horses... There is everything – in the meat, you can’t recognize which animal was slaughtered”.
Consumers are also aware of this, and they only sometimes have the opportunity to find domestic meat, but due to low salaries and pensions, they cannot think about quality.
Unfortunately, decades of omissions have extinguished villages and displaced the population, making livestock farming an almost impossible mission. There are few farmers who say that there is a solution. It is necessary to protect domestic production with a guaranteed purchase price, stressed Kasumovic: “That the state does not give incentives to agricultural producers, but to the purchaser who will give it directly to producers through the price of live cattle and live scales.”
It does not depend on them, but they say – if the agricultural policy does not change in a way that domestic production is more important than the interests of import lobbies, meat production will be completely shut down. Then we will all be at a loss.
E.Dz.
