Summary of newspapers of the previous day – 10. 9. 2009

Food producers exult, they got whip for supermarkets

Farmers and food producers can exult. The Parliament approved a law on a significant market power on Wednesday afternoon. It threats to trade chains with a fine in height of five million crowns of ten percents from a turnover, unless they sale below costs or they want suppliers to pay so called “list-charge”, so that their goods would be introduced in the supply at all. The parliamentarians approved the law already for the second time. The Senate had returned it with a small amendment. Its aim was to prevent making use of the law by for example suppliers of clothes and dry goods.

Vine-growers: Crop will be lower but quality above average

South-Moravian vine-growers expect by as much as third less harvest than is a longtime average. However, a sugar content of grapes is high thanks to sunny weather in August and at the beginning of September, so vintages will start roughly by one or two weeks in advance compared to the last year. According to vine-growers, this year´s should belong to the above-average considering the quality. “Compared to last year´s above-average crop, this year the harvest will be about a half; in comparison with a long-term average the crop will be lower by about quarter”, a director of Znovín Znojmo, Pavel Vajčnšr, told. Also a vine-grower Tomáš Krist from Milotice in Hodonín region expects a crop lower by 30 - 40 percents.

Farmers are frantic with low buy-out prices

Farmers hoped that by sale of cereals they would cover debts and there would be remaining money for an operation, however, they have to sale under costs. “I do not remember such cereal process. I hoped that after this year´s harvest time we would even up debts caused by lowe milk process, in which we bargain away in long-term every month several hundreds of thousand crowns. But the situation is absolutely desperate. The buy-out process this year are the worst in last twenty years”, a chairman of Rolnické družstvo Úhlava in Dolany, Josef Balín is angry. Farmers in the region Klatovy are completely heartbroken with the present situation. They tried to store the crop and wait for better times.

Numbers of pigs in CR started to grow again, reputedly thanks to import of living piglets

Numbers of pigs in the Czech Republic started to grow after more than two years of continuing decrease. It results from actual data of the Czech Statistic Office. From April to August they increased by eight percents to 2,129 million pieces; however, in year-on-year comparison they were lower by 9,4 percents, and against the state ten year ago the y were roughly half. According to a president of the Agrarian Chamber, Jan Veleba, the raising are re-extended thanks to imports of living piglets for fattening from abroad. Thanks to the present very low prices of feeding cereals, they will reputedly increase in the future.