Pig farmers make case for pork price rise

A group of MPs is backing a rise in the cost of English bacon, as a separate campaign is launched backing improvements to pigs’ welfare.

The environment, food and rural affairs select committee says most of the evidence it received suggested English pig farmers are not receiving a fair share of the retail price.

Its report says inefficiencies in the farming process, disease outbreaks high feed prices and “burdensome environmental regulations” contribute to the pricing disparity.

But it also notes the English pig industry’s adherence to high welfare standards makes it vulnerable to competition from European producers.

Committee chairman Michael Jack said: “Retailers and processors must look again at their supply chain relationships to ensure that they deliver a fair price to the producer while responding to consumer demand.

“At the same time the industry, with support from Defra, must look again at which steps it can take to reduce its costs and increase its productivity to ensure that it has a viable long-term future.”

The MPs’ findings may fit with a campaign launched yesterday by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and the RSPCA, which is seeking higher minimum welfare standards for UK farmers.

Its head of farm animal science, Julia Wrathall, has said many of the nine million pigs in Britain each year may be reared at well below acceptable levels, despite the overall British average being much greater than minimum EU standards.

She wants the sector to adopt a voluntary labelling code as a result to help improve consumers’ awareness of how the pigs they are buying were raised.

“It may come as a surprise but there are actually no industry-wide agreed definitions when it comes to labelling, in complete contrast to eggs and chickens that do have legal definitions at EU level for terms such as ‘free range’. We need clearer labelling, and under a system which makes sense to everyone.”

The RSPCA’s ‘Rooting for Pigs’ campaign has the backing of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver – and appears to be supported by the MPs’ report out today.

It concludes: “Pig producers are rightly proud of their high welfare standards, but we do not consider that they have successfully promoted to the consumer the justification for the higher cost of English pig meat.

“Retailers and catering suppliers are responsible for ensuring that labelling of pig meat products is clear and unambiguous, but producers, animal welfare groups such as the RSPCA, and government, have a role in making certain that consumers understand the difference between the standards of welfare in the various methods of pig production and ensuring that pig meat produced in the UK is of a high welfare standard.”

Farming minister Jane Kennedy said she welcomed the “focus” brought by the select committee’s report.

She said the government was “in active discussions with all parties, including the supermarkets, on an agreed set of voluntary labelling criteria which will allow consumers to make more informed choices and support our farmers without imposing more legislation”.