Moscow dictates prices

The Agricultural Economics Research Institute (AKI) keeps monitoring and publishing the world’s agri-food prices and trends. We can learn from their latest market report that due to the import ban introduced by Russia, the price pressure on Hungarian dairy products increased as demand dropped in main EU markets. The price of butter will drop as of January, milk powder’s price will reduce from March and these trends will manifest in the price of raw milk at the end of the year at the earliest. Raw milk’s price may hit the nadir in the first quarter of 2015 and could start rising in the second quarter. In September 2014 raw milk’s production price was HUF 100.48/kg, up 2 percent from the level of a year earlier. According to a short-term forecast by the European Commission, published in October 2014, pork production in the EU will be around 22.2 million tons in 2014, a bit less than in 2013.