NFM to increase animal feed prices by up to 14%

Business

34 Minutes Ago

NATIONAL Flour Mills Ltd has said it was “forced” to raise the price of its animal feed, owing to global price increases.

In a release on Wednesday, it said there have been “incremental increases” in grain prices over the past months, and that its increase will range from three to 14 per cent.

Its materials are primarily sourced in North America. But it said another major factor in this decision is China’s high demand for grain “to support the recovery of its hog sector which was seriously affected by the African Swine Flu in 2018 and 2019.

“The Chinese government has made the recovery of this sector a priority for 2020 and 2021, and their high demand for grain has led to price increases of soybean and corn by over 40 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively.”

In addition, it said dry weather in South America has negatively affected the region’s 2021 corn and soybean crops.

“These problems were exacerbated by labour strikes in Argentina in January 2021.”

It added that the covid19 pandemic has affected trade in general and disrupted it internationally, “driving up the cost of shipping goods of all kinds.

“The demand for goods has also outstripped the availability of containers due to the large imbalance at present with supplies being shipped to China, and the delays in most major ports due to high shipping traffic is causing an escalation in freight costs in most sectors.”

No prices were included in the release.

In February, Trade Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon said she was hopeful that, as the worldwide demand for items such as steel and key ingredients used to make feed normalised, so would their prices.