REPORT: Britain’s pig farm crisis is getting worse, driven by the perfect storm of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, the industry is proposing new ways to slaughter pigs on farms and launching desperate attempts to lure back migrant workers. Claire Hamlett updates us on the current situation.

Triggered by a shortage of slaughterhouse workers and butchers, mainly from Eastern Europe, who returned home thanks to Brexit and Covid, farmers have been trying to clear a ‘backlog’ of 170,000 pigs from their farms, with around 30,000 sows already killed in the past six months. Now, to help farmers deal with the labour shortage, the government is expanding the ways in which piglets, as well as lambs, can be killed on farms and in short-staffed slaughterhouses.

The Protection of Animals at the Time of Killing Regulations 2022 will allow farmers and slaughterhouse workers to kill piglets, lambs and kids (baby goats) weighing up to a certain weight using non-penetrative bolt devices, which are normally only used for stunning kids and lambs or ‘emergency’ slaughter of piglets. These bolt guns work by delivering a severe blow to the head, basically like being hit really hard with a hammer.

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Studies cited by the new legislation found that this method of killing lambs and piglets is “effective” and “immediate”, but this depends on whether the bolt gun is powerful enough and the correct bolt head is used for the species being killed with it, as well as whether it is used correctly. Because the aim of this legislation is to facilitate slaughter at the hands of farmworkers with arguably less training and experience at killing, this could create many more opportunities for poor animal welfare.

Another study found that inappropriate equipment or use of captive bolt guns, as well as restraint of pigs during stunning, could result in pain and fear, and identified lack of skill and tiredness in staff as many hazards for the welfare of pigs during slaughter. With such a huge ‘backlog’ of animals to kill, and so few people to do it, one can only imagine the animal suffering that is likely to occur as a result.

The National Pig Association (NPA) and the National Farmers Union (NFU) have written to the government asking for an emergency summit to resolve the crisis. They say that the government’s plan to deal with the labour shortage was not working, with only 105 butchers from Europe using the temporary visa scheme and no applicants for the recently ended Slaughter Incentive Payment Scheme, which was supposed to contribute “towards the extra costs involved in operating additional slaughter shifts at abattoirs.” In other words, Europeans could not be lured back to the UK to work awful jobs for a short time only to be booted out of the country again once they were done.

In their letter, the NPA and NFU also state that 40 independent pig farmers have quit the industry already due to the crisis, according to Grocer. The industry is truly on the brink of collapse. Whether it survives may now be out of the control of the NFU, the NPA or the government.

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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