Where's The Beef?

It has often been said that under Japanese supervision, Vojvodina could feed half of Europe. At the moment there is no meat, no bacon, no sausages and no fat! The consumers feel as if they've been hit by the plague. Producers say that the situation is catastrophic. Buyers find the prices too high, while producers claim that they are heading for bankruptcy if they work. By taking control of prices, the state has created a chaos which it will be difficult to sort out.

Before the war between one million and 1.2 million pigs were fattened in Vojvodina every year. Half the number came from small holdings. The farmer's have now reduced breeding to a fifth, while the state sector has been halved. This is the result of years of neglect by the state, or rather, a policy whose results are worse than the plague.

Branko Cvetincanin of Kuzmin fattened up to 120 pigs per shift a year ago. Now his pens, built with the help of a credit in 1977, are empty. ``The feed is very expensive and there's no profit in fattening,'' said Cvetincanin. ``Everybody knows why there's a shortage of meat. Agriculture has been neglected, and measures taken are late. It takes at least one to two years to renew the livestock fund. We're all to blame for the current situation, including sanctions, the war, and especially politics from 1989 onwards.''

Velizar Acimovic from the vicinity of Sombor is one of the few farmers who keeps around 600 pigs now. This is because he owns a butcher shop, but it has been closed since July 7.

``The government has determined prices making all work profitless. A kilo of pork joint costs 1,900,000,000 dinars (2DM). But there's no profit because the Deutsche Mark has gone up, and without Deutsche Marks there's no gas, spare parts, feed... A kilo of pig costs 1.5 DM/gross weight. The dinar is valueless and we don't have a big boss who would change things. If you ask me, it all smells of sabotage,'' said Acimovic.

Private butchers were the first to react to the putting of meat and meat products under the state's control by closing down their shops. Slaughter-house workers went on collective holidays, but the government's package of measures in August finished them off. Slaughtering is done half-heartedly, while the products are held in warehouses and sold only when some profit can be made.

Last week a thousand pigs were slaughtered in ``Panonka,'' Sombor, the same number as the month before. This once used to be the daily output. Catastrophe is the word used by ``Panonka'' director Zivomir Selakov when describing the situation. ``We're making losses at the very beginning, more so with meat products than with meat.'' Selakov says that a kilo of gross weight cost 100 million dinars in August, while the price of some meat products was 340 million dinars. In a few days the price of a kilo of gross weight jumped to 450 million dinars, while the price of meat products remained the same. Now one kilo of gross weight of pig costs from 800 million to one billion dinars, while the price of a pork joint has only doubled. Experts claim that a kilo of pork joint should cost at least 3.5 DM if a kilo of gross weight costs 1 DM.

``We asked that the state set up a parity of prices between maize, feed, the price of gross weight and meat, because we'll go under by the time they get around to setting new prices. We will slowly eat ourselves: the livestock fund and the machines are not being renewed and we are forced to pay minimal wages. The shops are empty or they have long-lasting products which are expensive and don't sell all that well,'' said Selakov.

There was a time when the politicians in Vojvodina complained that Vojvodina had been allotted the role of Yugoslavia's pantry. The pantry was filled to overflowing then, but as things were only taken out, it is now practically empty.