World Grain - December 2007 - 21

COUNTRYFOCUS

number is expected to jump to 500,000
tonnes in 2008. Sweden's big malt producer, Viking Malt, uses around 220,000
tonnes of grain.
"It makes us exporters of about
700,000 to 1.1 million tonnes (of grain),"
he said. "This year it's 1.1 million. The
average would be about one million. We
export about 50 percent wheat. We're
also big exporters of malting barley."
With improved prices for oilseed
rape, Sweden's level of self-sufficiency
has increased year on year. "We had
around 95,000 hectares of oilseed rape,"
he said. "It's split about 50/50 between
spring and winter. There is a big crusher, AarhusKarlshamn (AAK), which
uses about 300,000 tonnes, which is a
bit more than production of 250,000 to
275,000 tonnes." The difference is made
up by imports.

GRAIN TRADING CHANGES

Changes to the E.U.'s Common Agricultural Policy and high prices have
meant Swedish grain traders have had to
get used to a dramatically changed situation, Erik Hartman, Swedish Feed and
Grain Association, told World Grain.
The effective end of set-aside and the
suspension of E.U. intervention for grain

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LANTMÄNNEN REDUCES COSTS

Lantmännen Lantbruk has been
through a major cost-reduction program called Project Red Alert. "We
did have 92 collection points (silos) and storage for about a million
tonnes," said Jeppsson. The trigger for
the changes was a rise in the amount
of on-farm storage, reducing the need
for Lantmännen to find space at harvest
time. "Farmers have increased on-farm
storage by 80,000 to 100,000 tonnes,"
he said. "Every year it goes up by that
amount."
"In 2001, we collected 1.8 million to
1.9 million tonnes at harvest," he said.
"It's down to 1.3 million this year. We
have reduced our 92 silos down to 25
in two years to balance out the needs
according to the capacity."
Lantmännen's members supported
the changes. "It's always difficult to
close facilities for farmers," he said. "It
went smoothly. The main reason that
we were doing it was to be able to pay
better prices."
He identified four main production areas: the most southern part of the country; the plain to the west of Lidköping;
the east around Norrköping; and the areas to the west of Stockholm.

helped force traders in Sweden to turn to
risk management measures much more
than ever before.
"We had been quite isolated," he said.
"We had a big surplus and exported 25
to 30 percent of production or sold it
into intervention." Sweden's location
in northern Europe makes life hard for
exporters. "We are far from our export

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World Grain - December 2007

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