The UK's National Pig Association (NPA) has again called on the government for urgent financial help, warning that from November around 15,000 uncontracted pigs a week could be left on farms with no market.
In September the NPA proposed a support package that included a Slaughter Incentive Scheme and Private Storage Aid to remove the surplus expected to build up over the autumn. It says it has not yet heard officially from the Environment Department, Defra, how the proposals will be taken forward.
An NPA survey found that several processors serving notice on producers earlier this year was likely to be felt from the autumn. "We're being contacted by producers with increasingly heavy pigs sat on farm," chief executive Lizzie Wilson said, warning of potentially serious welfare problems and a repeat of the crisis of a few years ago.
Farming minister Stephen Morgan told the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee last week that he would convene an emergency industry summit, one of the NPA's requests. Defra says it will explore market monitoring and forecasting, fairness in the supply chain and ways to stimulate demand for British pigmeat.
Committee chair Alistair Carmichael asked whether the summit would address too many pigs on farms between now and Christmas. Mr Morgan said he wanted to hear the industry's views and see what government could do to build resilience and growth, noting that the pig sector tends to be "boom and bust".
Reporting by Alistair Driver for Pig World.
Photo: Hugh Venables / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Pig World
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