Pig farmers in Britain are having their resilience tested again, Jo Churchill, chair of the National Pig Association (NPA), writes in a signed column for Pig World marking her first six months in the role. The views are the writer's own.
Churchill, a former Defra minister whose brief included the Precision Breeding bill, took over in March from Rob Mutimer, who had held the post for about six years. She had expected a settling-in period; instead, she writes, it was obvious from the start that the industry, only just out of the serious problems of earlier in the decade, was under strain once more.
Global instability has driven costs up, she writes, and farmers face oversupply, disease and the constant worry of activists on premises that are often also the family home. Meeting members across the country and at events such as the British Pig and Poultry Fair, she found few insulated from these pressures, and many speaking "with sadness in their eyes" about whether to carry on. This summer, she adds, the Fair Dealing Obligations (Pigs) regulations felt like yet another reason to leave the market.
Her central worry is food security. "I worry that we now produce less than 50% of our own pork in this country," she writes, though British farmers could supply far more, particularly to the foodservice sector that feeds schoolchildren, hospital patients and the armed forces. Governments have talked of buying British, she argues, and Covid, the war in Ukraine and current conflicts show the case for being more self-reliant while also exporting.
Churchill and NPA chief executive Lizzie Wilson have met the farming minister to set out the state of the industry and suggest short- and medium-term measures, she writes, before even reaching abattoirs, staffing and vet numbers, and they have also spoken with the chair of Parliament's EFRA committee.
She argues that pig farming should be seen as part of a wider ecosystem: without the feed it buys, the hauliers it employs and the shed manufacturers it supports, all of British farming is weaker. She calls on producers, who value their independence, to find a "commonality of purpose" so the industry can press its case together.
Jo Churchill is chair of the National Pig Association.
Photo: Hugh Venables / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Pig World
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