Farmers face killing 100,000 pigs due to post-Brexit butchers’ shortage

Shockingly farmers face killing 100,000 pigs due to post-Brexit butchers’ shortage.

According to the National Pig Association, healthy animals could be destroyed due to the lack of EU workers post Brexit. According to the association there are currently not enough people working in slaughterhouses, and this could lead to nearly 100,000 healthy pigs having to be destroyed. The association pointed out that pig farming is in “absolute crisis”.

According to the Daily Mail, the farming industry have placed the blame for the situation on Home Secretary, Priti Patel. This is due to the fact that butchers have not been added to the list of shortage occupations for foreign workers.

Speaking to BBC’s Today programme NPA chief executive Zoe Davies said: “The issue is that because, for whatever reason, a lot of workers have left processing plants and gone home because a lot of them are eastern European.

“The abbatoirs themselves cannot process the number of pigs that we supply them with on a weekly basis.

“So for the last six to eight weeks, all of the major processers have been cutting their kills by up to 25%, which is leading to pigs being kept on farms for far longer than they should be. And that is leading to an absolute crisis for us on the pig side.”

Davies added: “Even if we stopped serving sows now – and that means mating them – it will take 10 to 11 months before the pigs stop coming.

“So you’re getting people in increasingly desperate situations. They are getting into debt. They’re getting very stressed out. And we’re now starting to head towards a situation where healthy animals may well need to be destroyed.”

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