More expensive producer price for local lamb goats – What breeders say in Lasithi

With a small increase of around 50 cents compared to last year, the breeders of Lasithi Prefecture have decided to sell their lambs for the Easter holidays, trying to obtain some liquidity so that they can buy clover and corn to maintain the herds them alive and have the strength to continue producing quality meat for the Greek consumer public.

“Before Easter 2023, we sold our goats and lambs from the farms of Lassithi prefecture, roughly from 6.70 to 7.30 per kilo, to meat traders, butchers and supermarkets. This year we have decided to sell a little more of our production, to cover some of the increased breeding costs. We will also give goats and lambs from 7 to 7.50 euros slaughtered, ready for sale.

In the prefecture of Lasithi we still have sufficient quantities of lambs and goats to meet the needs of consumers. There is no reason to import amnoerifis, as it sounds. It is indeed true that during the days leading up to the Catholic Easter, there were some exports of lambs from Greece, but they did not have the volume mentioned in some publications”, the president of the Association of Livestock Breeders N. Lasithiou, Yiannis Brokos from Merabelo, told us.

Certainly this year there is no oversupply of lamb goats, which in previous years traveled by the thousands to neighboring countries.

“It is true that this year the number of amnoerifis we have is smaller than in previous years and the reasons are obvious. A serious number of amnoerifs were available at good prices at the Catholic Easter and this has its value. A large number of lambs will be missing from the Greek market due to the destruction of livestock by the floods in Thessaly and in addition a large percentage of breeders have reduced their herd numbers in order to make ends meet and bear the increased cost of rearing the lambs. their animals. Unfortunately, the State does not support us financially and animal husbandry has now become unprofitable.

It is not possible to be in the mountains 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, and not have a daily wage of 5-10 euros left to support our families. Any reasonable person, if he sits down and calculates everything, will see that livestock farming leaves us nothing and we all want to abandon it”, said the president of the livestock breeders of Lasithi province, Mr. Yiannis Brokos, indignant with the whole situation in the countryside. .

“The government did the right thing and increased the minimum wage for workers, but it should have taken care of us who work day and night all day, every day, so that it could find ways to raise our own incomes as well,” Mr. Brokos emphasized. .

They leave the profession

The cattle-breeding society of the Lassithi prefecture numbers approximately 600 cattle-breeding families, while another 600 are engaged in cattle-breeding, whose main occupation is not cattle-breeding, but something different.

“Young children from Lasithi prefecture are constantly leaving the profession of livestock breeder, who see that they are not earning a living wage and are looking to find their luck in other professions. Unfortunately, if this situation continues, with the government indifferent to our problems, animal husbandry will die out. Importers try to meet the demand in the holiday market with Romanian lambs and some brainless speculators import them live, slaughter them in Greek slaughterhouses and “baptize” them Greek, placing them on the market with Greek stamps. Unfortunately, we have a problem at the border, because the control mechanisms do not work for everything that is imported”, complains Mr. Yiannis Brokos.

Missing… the metaphorical equivalent

In the previous years, the livestock farmers caught up and took a financial breather with the collection of the transport equivalent, and then they were left waiting…

“We continue to hope and wait for the payment of the transport equivalent, which has been blocked by the government. We ask for the simplification of the procedures and immediate payment of the transport equivalent, as well as the subsidies from the ecological schemes, from which it seems that we will finally get some “crumbs”. With this little money we are entitled to we will be able to buy clover and corn, feed our animals to keep them alive and productive. Nature outside is dry. It didn’t rain in the fall, it rained very little in the winter and none in the spring. In the mountains there is no longer any grass for our animals to eat.

To raise and sell a lamb weighing 10 kg in 5 months we have calculated that we spend 120 euros. In its sale we collect 70 euros. Therefore, we sell far below the cost of production and we ask the State to cover this difference, so that we can continue to produce and others can find everything ready on their table”, concluded Yiannis Brokos.