By the end of March, there were 15.7m of hogs in Poland. While the situation has been somewhat bad for many years, it is expected to get worse. Experts have no doubts about how soon, many meat companies will go bankrupt and prices will be heightened.

“The decrease is dramatic. On the one hand it’s caused by falling hog prices, on the other – by growing feeder prices. Many farmers gave up raising animals. Many sows were killed so it may take up to two years to reach former levels of hog,” Jerzy Majchrzak from Sokolow meat producer said.

In addition, cheap meat from the EU replaces Polish products, according to Puls Biznesu.

“The situation of Polish meat companies is very hard. The strongest ones will survive. We may expect many bankruptcies this year, especially of slaughter companies. There are over 1,000 of them in Poland while there is enough place for several hundreds only”, Wieslaw Rozanski, the CEO of the Union of Meat Industry Producers and Employers commented.

Hog prices will grow as well. The Agency of Agricultural Market expects that at the end of this year, pork prices will have grown 30 percent against 2007.