ising costs experienced by animal feed manufacturers will have to be passed all the way down to the consumer, it has been claimed.
With the cost of agricultural commodities such as corn and wheat rising week by week, animal feed manufacturers have been left with no choice but to charge more for their produce.
Now, British pig farmers have revealed that the extra expense is being passed on to consumers, the Guardian reports.
Two-thirds of UK pig farmers insist that they will be out of business within two years unless they charge more for meat, due to the rising cost of agricultural commodities.
"At the moment, supermarkets and most processors are making large profits – but pig farmers are losing around £20 on every pig they sell," Barney Kay, general manager of the National Pig Association, told the newspaper.
British animal feed firms could also face stiff competition form US firms supplying cheap produce if the EU approves proposals to let feed with small amounts of genetically modified content enter the continent.
The European Commission has postponed talks on the subject and expects to re-visit the issue at the end of the month.
According to reports in the Observer, the UK government is one of many across the continent that is backing the proposals, which would be the first to allow GM products into the European food chain.
