Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir will meet with the management of Pinnacle Feeds Limited on Monday.
Last week, Pinnacle announced there would be an eight per cent increase in the cost of feed on March 15. It listed the doubling of the price of corn and soybeans over the last three years, the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, increasing demand from China and uncertainty from the South American market as the driving factors.
Government provided a $2 million subsidy which is set to expire at monthend. It has been credited with staving off the price increase over the last year, but Weir said another subsidy would not be the first option.
“I do not start these conversations by putting subsidies on the table, I start these conversations by first finding out if this increase is necessary. Where is the evidence to support the increase? Can we go through the numbers to determine if there could be a hold-off? The purpose of the meeting would be to continue the detailed analysis that we started,” Weir said. (Nation News)
