Power outages are the main barrier to the pork market operators, as unanimously stated by the producers and processors of pork. Thus, emergency and planned power outages have a direct impact both on the pricing situation in the pork market, and on the format of operators' work.
Thus, for a month, processors have been facing cancellations of orders for chilled pork, postponed deliveries and forced review of production schedules and/or shipment of finished products. Because of this, many operators had significant transient balances and returns in mid-October, so processors responded by reducing stocking volumes and slaughterhouse workloads by at least 20-30%. The corresponding changes in demand also had a significant impact on pork producers' planned sales of commercial batches, which increased pressure on prices amid a more seasonally active live weight gain.
In particular, the power outages during the second decade of October intensified seasonal reduction of prices for pigs of slaughter conditions: while during the second week of October the average price for pork live weight was UAH 73.9 / kg, then after four weeks it fell to UAH 61.7 / kg (-16.5%).
But price fluctuations are not the only changes observed by market operators, because the cost of energy resources is growing. For example, the cost of a kilowatt of electricity received from a diesel generator is two or three times higher than the standard one. But both producers and processors are forced to accept such costs, because long power cuts lead to greater production losses and higher production costs. Enterprises that did not have time to "insure" in advance to ensure uninterrupted operation are forced to adapt to outage schedules, waiting for 3-5 weeks for generators to be delivered from abroad. However, not all technological processes can be adjusted to the schedule (for example, feed production), so the standby power supply is a necessary condition of work today.
The Association of Ukranian Pig Breeders is a non-profit, voluntary organization founded by domestic pork producers. The main objectives of the association are to represent and protect the rights and interests of the association farms, to promote the development and implementation of new technologies for the efficient production of pork, the expansion of markets, and protection of domestic markets.