Government Support of Agriculture Monopolized by a Group of Speculators

Government is responsible for the exaggerated rise of prices of red meat in the national market after the price of lamb meat in the capital Algiers reaches 1800 AD (the equivalent of $ 25) since the beginning of the current May under the pretext of the decline of national production of cattle and the high cost of raising livestock, National and Local Associations for Protecting the Consumer said.

Many Associations asked citizens to boycott the purchase of red meat to deter speculators and networks of intermediaries and actors in the supply chain of red meat, and compel the ministries of trade, agriculture and rural development to review the control mechanisms and support the national agriculture, after it was discovered that the final consumer does not benefit from support and repeated operations of survey of debts of breeders and farmers in the benefit of mafia networks which monopolized the agricultural sector and tightened their control over the various stages of animal production in Algeria.

Trends in the prices of animals feed in international stock markets are opposite to the justifications of officials in the commercial and agricultural sectors, as the figures of the Chicago council for Trade shows that the prices of raw materials to produce animals feed, represented mainly in the Soya and maize noticed a decline during the first six months of this year, as the price per ton of maize for the month of July will reach $ 244.5 per ton, while the total price per ton for the same product in August is expected to reach 522.5 dollars per ton.

Algeria’s imports from cattle food in 2011 reached the equivalent of 3 million tons of maiz and 900 thousand tons of soya, 80 percent of the total quantity was directed for the production of poultry and 20 percent for breeding cows.

The increase in the number of cattle, means an increase in the production of animals feed in Algeria, which threatens the collapse of the production of red and white meat, and milk as well, in the case the development of animals feed production will fail.

Figures provided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, show that the number of sheep in Algeria rose from 18.9 million in 2005 to 23.2 million in 2011, while the total number of Algerian and imported strains cows reached about 1.9 million, and 600.000 camels.

General Union of Algerian Peasants revealed that the number of farmers in Algeria reaches nearly 900.000 at the national level, while the number of reserves and areas on the national level reach 336 on a total area of ​​over 3 million hectares.

The same union acknowledges its absolute inability to combat the “mafia” that monopolizes the distribution networks of red meat, which control the price of meat to the point that the difference between prices in the rural areas and southern and northern regions reach up to three times in a lot of times, before the absolute powerlessness of the government to intervene under the pretext of liberalizing the trade, and the justification of supply and demand, even if profits which the brokers get turn to an absolute greed.