Imminent risk that there is no feed for animal feed. The manufacturers warn that the transport strike is causing a double effect that hits them and the ranchers. On the one hand, there are no trucks that go to the ports to collect the grain and other essential raw materials to make feed. On the other hand, neither are there any to bring food to livestock farms. “This is starting to get very serious because the animals can’t stop eating,” says José Álvarez, a rancher based in Salvatierra de los Barros, in the Sierra Suroeste region, one of the areas in the region where the cattle raising. This Thursday he went to buy feed, as he usually does, at SAT Santo Domingo. “At the moment I have, but as long as this lasts more days it will be impossible to feed the sheep and the cows”, he endorses.
The feed factories in Extremadura are very concerned about the strike of the carriers. Stocks are starting to run low. And the field begins to shake. “The focus is not being put on this but it is very worrying,” adds Eva Casado, president of the Extremadura Association of Feed Manufacturers, which groups 60% of the sector in the region. There is danger of shortage. “We are manufacturing while the raw material we have stored lasts,” they confirm to HOY from a factory in Jerez de los Caballeros.
«The supply chain is beginning to break down and this is very serious because if cereal and other materials do not arrive you cannot manufacture. Some manufacturers have to make feed for only a few days; others, for weeks. So you can not continue the situation. We are talking about food, something of first necessity. Without them, the animals will die, ”affects the president of the association.
Casado points out that due to the transport strike it has been “very complicated” to go to the points of entry of the cereal into Spain, normally the ports. To this is added that, “in more than one case, we cannot go out with the trucks to distribute feed due to the pickets.” A farmer from Jerez confirms to this newspaper that he even has difficulty approaching the factory and taking the feed to his farm “due to the attitude of the carriers on strike.”
From the Association of Manufacturers, a letter has been written to the Government Delegation in Extremadura so that the supply of feed and raw materials to the factories that make feed is classified as an “essential and minimum service” to avoid a blockade that threatens survival of the Extremadura cattle herd. “As if we didn’t already have enough with the rise in feed now this. You can’t miss the feed! »Cry out the farmer Álvarez.
For its part, the agrarian organization UPA calls for “responsibility” from the carriers in their protests. «The feed for the animals and the output of the product (especially the most perishable) for society are sacred. With things to eat is not played. Protest, but the food chain cannot stop », he has indicated on his Twitter profile.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.