The Wardman Wire

This is a short segment from Farming Today at the weekend, throwing a different light on what is happening with our possible “food security” problem. The national breeding pig herd is down by almost a tenth since Christmas; get a British pork chop while you can.

The irony is devastating. Just think about it.

The British pig industry has some of the highest welfare standards in the world:

The British pig industry is unique, producing pork, bacon and ham to standards of animal welfare which are not regularly matched outside Britain. The loss of the British pig herd will mean consumers lose the choice to buy pork, bacon and ham from a high welfare, assured supply chain, that deploys sustainable production methods.

And - even so - significant losses are made on every single pig:

Stewart Houston, the BPEX chairman, led a delegation which delivered a 10,000 signature petition to Number 10 calling for help for pig farmers.
“We have been struggling with losses of £26 per pig for over six months,” Mr Houston said.

Meanwhile, the Animal “Rights” campaigners are calling for even higher standards and prices, while accepting that British Pigs are already better looked after than imports:

British pigs are already experiencing better welfare than much of imported products, thanks to
the UK ban on sow stalls, but there is still room for improvement, particularly the provision of
straw, a reduction in tail-docking and stopping the use of farrowing crate.

And the market is demonstrating that consumers are actually more interested in price than welfare, and the Minister Lord Rooker is saying that Welfare Standards cannot be used as a factor in international negotiations:

My Lords, on the first part of my noble friend’s question, he is absolutely right. If the supermarkets want to see the end of English pork production, they are going exactly the right way about it. We fully support the claims of the industry that it should get a fairer share of the price, but we cannot interfere on that. It is true that we have the highest welfare standards in the world. Some other countries in Europe—Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany—certainly have high standards. However, the real issue is that World Trade Organisation rules do not allow welfare standards to be raised as part of the deals, which we are pressing in the European Union to get on to the WTO agenda.

(I don’t want to have a go at Lord Rooker, either - he has probably done the best job he could in the curcumstances. But you have to admit that he has grown into the role.)

Meanwhile, a level playing field in international pig welfare across the EU will not be here until 2013 (RSPCA):

In 2001, EU Ministers agreed in principle to ban sow stalls, though not until 2013, and to make provision of rooting material compulsory.

In the interim the British pig herd had fallen by 50% (audio clip) between the 1990s and 2006, and has declined by a further 8% in the last 3 months (also audio clip).

So the Animal “Rights” lobby’s further campaigns focussed purely on Britain may well result in the imminent loss of our pig industry, which will mean that we have to buy imported pork chops grown with lower welfare, which will result in more cruelty to pigs. And there won’t be much money left for welfare-friendly native pig-farmers.

As Dick Van Dyke would say.

Cor, lovaduck! Gawd ‘elp us!

How appropriate that pig snouts are - like the logic everywhere in this mess - circular and full of holes.

Make of that what you will. I’m just glad I’m not in pigs.