France: the Ministry of Agriculture cooperates with the sector for the future of the swine industry

The French Minister of Agriculture, Stéphane Le Foll, brought together, early this week, all the parties in the swine industry to develop a plan for the future of the sector. The goal is to restore the confidence in the future for all the parts that form the chain. This requires a collective and coordinated dynamic.

The main central concepts of the future plan are based on:

• reaching a production level of 25 million tons, going on with the improvement of the environmental impact of the farms.
• consolidate the abattoirs, the butchering rooms, and the processing industries.
• improve the commercial relations in the agricultural and the food sector.
• strengthen the market strategies, implying all the sectors in the brand "France". The French government defends, at the EU level, the compulsory labelling regarding the origin for all the meat products. It also proposes the strengthening of the brand VPF (viande porcine française = French pork), integrating, beyond the origin, qualitative aspects (food safety quality and performance of the welfare regulations, etc.) The goal is to participate in a kind of Food Safety Quality (FSQ) process, like in Germany, that entailed an increase in the German production and exports.

Within the frame of the support for the exportation, the discussions have allowed to make progress in two important aspects: the improvement and the simplification of the certification and the control procedures, and the increase of the public support for the exportation to Asia.