According to statistics, farmers’ incomes have increased by 20 percent. But they don’t want to be labeled winners of the crisis.
Nerves are running around the food summit at the Ministry of Social Affairs on Monday. Nobody wants to be blamed for the cost explosion of recent months, especially not the farmers.
According to estimates by Statistics Austria, they can claim an income increase of almost a fifth (exactly 19.6 percent), “but that does not allow us to conclude that Austrian farming families are the winners of the crisis,” says the chairman of the Boerenbond, Georg Strasser. When it comes to individual food prices, the share of farmers is also negligible.
“Employee incomes have been rising for decades, in our industry there is no annual adjustment,” says Strasser. The income level of farmers is at the level of 2011, while the purchasing power per inhabitant has increased continuously.
There is no doubt that farmers are also struggling with high energy costs and fertilizer prices have also exploded. According to Strasser, this must be compensated by rising producer prices.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
