Rabbit Meat Production and Foreign Trade Globally and in Hungary

Szendrő, Katalin

Keywords: rabbit meat, World, Hungary, production, foreign trade

Global rabbit meat production continues to increase, mainly due to the growth in Chi-nese production. The reduced production in Europe is a result of the closure of small farms and the rising costs and prices caused by, for example, strict animal welfare stan-dards. Rabbit meat production in Hungary fell significantly after the change in political system and stagnated with fluctuations in the past decade, but in recent years there has been an upward trend. In 2012, Hungary was ranked 14th among rabbit meat producing countries (6,496 tonnes/year), which was 0.5% of the total world production. Since do-mestic rabbit meat consumption ratio was low, with 96-97% of the slaughtered rabbits being sold to international markets, only China, France and Belgium were ahead Hun-gary in terms of rabbit meat exports. With no imports, Hungary’s trade balance is excep-tional; it claimed second place as a net exporter in 2012. In 2011, Hungarian rabbit meat was exported mainly to Germany (25.3%), Italy (24.0%) and Switzerland (21.4%), while the Russian Federation significantly increased its import demands. The share of Hungar-ian rabbit meat imports in the Russian Federation was 80%, but it was above 50% in Switzerland, too. Besides stimulating domestic consumption via national marketing, Hungarian rabbit meat production and trade could be facilitated by retaining their posi-tions in existing markets and by expanding exports to those countries where further po-tential can be exploited. For the Swiss market, adoption of a housing system that meets local animal welfare expectations is the most important priority, whereas German cus-tomers prefer alternative rearing methods, while the Russians are concerned only with good quality rabbit meat products.

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