The Departmental Association of Pork Producers (Adepor) of Santa Cruz revealed that since November 2021 it has not received subsidized corn distributed by the Food Production Support Company (Emapa) and warned of a possible shortage of pork if the import of the grain from Argentina is not authorizedsays a report from the Erbol network.
Recently, the pig sector decided to increase the price of pork by Bs 2. Lto measure was rejected by the Government that maintains that it delivers regularly to the producers.
But contrary to the state version, the manager of Adepor, Henry Chávez, affirmed that the livestock sector is in a state of emergency due to the lack of corn, which affects the increase in food.
“Pork producers have subsidized the price issue for many years, but we can no longer. The sector is collapsed, we have closed farms and what is going to be achieved, if not solvedour farms will be closing and there will be a shortage of pork throughout the country,” he said in an interview with the Erbol program La Tarde En Directo.
Chávez affirmed that corn is one of the main foods for raising pigs, which even reaches 75%.
At the moment, he said that the corn that is currently purchased is through the “black market.”
“It is a national affectation, therefore, we have asked the Government to help us on this issue. They have all the tools and they have all the power and that is why we have asked them to be able to import corn from Argentina. which is the neighboring country because we know we can get it at a better price”, he stated.
He even revealed that for seven months the Food Production Support Company (Emapa) has provided corn to producers, but he assured that since November they no longer saw “a single grain” from the state company.
Chávez said that there were approaches with the manager of Emapa but said “they cannot move” 100% of the livestock requirement.
This Thursday, the manager of the state company, Franklin Flores, stated that it is planned to collect more than 100,000 tons of corn to cover the internal demand of the livestock sector.
The producers denounced the lack of corn and the increase in the price in the national market, which led to problems such as the closure of farms and the increase in meat prices.