The first side effects of the Green Deal – severe pressure on the cattle market

The transportation of cattle will be significantly restricted – calves up to one month old will not be allowed to be transported at all, and after that the duration of transportation will not exceed 2 hours. So, people from Courland will not be able to transport dairy calves from Latgale and vice versa. It will be prohibited to transport animals that are in the last trimester of pregnancy, but pets intended for slaughter will have to be transported within eight hours. The EP made such an emotional decision when voting on amendments to the animal transportation rules. Such a decision has caused huge outrage among farmers across Europe. Industry experts are discussing how this will affect our farmers.

Raimonds Jakovickis, livestock expert of the association “Farmers' Council” (ZSA): "Any legislative changes should primarily protect animals, but they must be scientifically sound and implementable in practice. Today, various technological improvements are already available that improve the quality of transportation and animal welfare along the way. Before making such a decision, a socio-economic impact assessment should be carried out, as such proposals should be based on facts, not emotions.

We export live animals to and from the EU, as well as import breeding animals. These amendments will particularly affect organic farms, as 80% of our beef cattle are organically raised. We export around 60,000 and import more than 2,000 animals per year, so their transportation is an integral part of the production and trade of livestock products. Both animal buyers and breeders are interested in ensuring that all welfare principles are observed during transportation and that animals are not exhausted after journeys. The existing regulation already requires compliance with high welfare standards, watering, feeding and resting animals during transportation, as well as special requirements for vehicles. The last-minute additions by the European Parliament regarding the ban on the transportation of animals for various categories of animals may significantly affect the transportation of animals in Latvia and other EU Member States in the future, which will have a negative impact on export markets.”

ZSA Board Member Kaspars Ādams: "In Latvia, almost all small dairy calves, especially bulls, are exported to Lithuania, Israel, Poland or Holland, mostly at 14 days old. By 2023, this will no longer be possible and dairy farmers will have to keep the born bulls until they are 35 days old. Farmers have a year to prepare their infrastructure for longer-term dairy bull keeping. Heifers are not exported, because they remain on the farm for re-breeding. The export of pregnant cattle in Latvia is not significant yet, and therefore these changes will not have a significant impact. In turn, the restriction on the transportation of slaughter cattle to 8 hours will significantly affect farmers, because currently these cattle are mainly sold to slaughterhouses in Lithuania and Poland. If the markets of these countries with live animals are not reachable, then local slaughterhouses will have no competitors and this may lead to farmers being unable to influence prices."

Juris Cīrulis, ZS “Mežacīruļi”: "In my opinion, some kind of reformation "craze" has taken over the top civil servants and politicians of Europe, because everything is being changed one after another. The previous order was not at fault, rather, the control of the existing system should have been strengthened. Under the new rules, farmers are the only losers. The only benefit is for those who work on generating new laws and regulations, imitating work in order to keep their benches in existing positions."

As the European Parliament's recommendations have yet to be assessed by the European Commission, it is hoped that its representatives will be more pragmatic. It is hoped that before taking the EP's recommendations into account, the European Commission will reverse the impact and ask the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) to assess scientifically based improvements in animal movement practices, rather than focusing solely on movement times.