Advantages and limits of a price indexing system tying piglet prices
to those of fattening pigs
Charles BRETTE
Institut National
Agronomique l’avis-Grignon
Centre
d ’ f.:tude
et de Recherche surl’!conomie
et
l’Organisation
des Productions _9nimales(C.E.R.E.O.P.A.)
By indexing piglet prices
on those offattening pigs,
themagnitude
ofcyclic
variations ofpiglet prices
can besubstantially
reduced.Although
theapplication
of a constant coefficient which should not fall below 109per cent ascompared
to the referenceperiod
of1972 - 7 6,
reducesthe variation gap of
piglet prices considerably,
the method of a fixedindexing
is ratherrigid.
Other
indexing
methods can reducesimultaneously
the variation gap ofpiglet prices
andthat of the difference between the
selling price
offattening pigs
and thepurchase price
ofpiglets.
Consequently,
these methods would lead to a fair income distribution betweenpig
rearers andfeeders. In any case, it seems advisable to base the
piglet price
on theselling price
offattening pigs
rather than on currentprices
offattening pigs
at the moment ofpiglet purchase.
Economical and financial analysis of
asample of firms from the pork butchery and curing industry
A. VIGNE
I.T.P.,
ServiceÉconomie,
34, bd de laGave,
3i5oo Toitloiise(France)
A group of twelve firms among the most
important
ones of thepork butchery
andcuring industry
andrepresenting
about 40 per cent of the gross turnover was studied on the basis ofaccountancy
data obtained over aperiod
of 3 yearsrunning
from 1972 till rg!4.As
compared
with thetrading
results of thewhole agricultural
and foodindustry,
thepork butchery
andcuring industry,
with a medium rate of added value, has to pay for asubstantially higher proportion
of man-power which set limits to thepossibilities
of investment and to the creation of reserves.Another fact to be
emphasized
is thegreat
sensitiveness oftrading
results towards the overall economic situation. The main rawmaterial,
thepig (about
70%
of theturnover)
issubjected
to very
high
fluctuations ofprices,
whichmight
reach 20per cent and more from one year to another, whereas theselling prices
fluctuate in a much slowerway.
°The
lowering
in the ratios of the overall economicyield
and of the financialindependence during
theperiod
studiedclearly
shows that thepig cycle might
alsoseriously
affect theoutput
of the