The government doesn’t care: UK pig farmers voice alarm over shrinking sector

Published 2023년 1월 16일

Tridge summary

The UK pig population has dropped from about 8 million in the 1990s to over 4 million today, despite consumer demand for pork products. The decline is due to meat giant Danish Crown building a new bacon factory in Rochdale that will only use imported meat from Denmark, as UK pigmeat is seen as too expensive. This, coupled with inflated feed and energy costs, has led to many pig farmers struggling and forcing some to close. The number of significant-sized pig producers in the UK is estimated to be in the hundreds, with pig numbers also in decline. Staying in the sector may require making better use of local and global markets, as Flavian Obiero, who manages an indoor pig farm in East Sussex, plans to start producing his own cured meats to reduce reliance on imported ones.

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Original content

“If they don’t make money, let’s get rid of them and switch to something else,” says Flavian Obiero, who manages an indoor pig farm in East Sussex. Obiero’s boss hasn’t had to heed his advice just yet, but after a torrid few years the UK’s remaining pig farmers are a shrinking group. The UK pig population has fallen from about 8 million in the 1990s to just over 4 million today. The decline is not from a lack of consumer demand for bacon and pork. We imported £2bn-worth of pork products last year. But shrinkage in production from UK farms seems to be unique to pigs. While cattle, sheep and poultry numbers on farms remain high despite their own various well-publicised crises, the pig sector gets smaller. The UK is largely self-sufficient in beef, lamb, dairy, chicken and eggs, but the figure for pork products is 40%. A largely overlooked development late last year encapsulated one reason for this contraction: the meat giant Danish Crown’s announcement that it was building a new ...

Source: TheGuardian