Pig farmers were giving Minister Nick Brown a hard time after discovering very little of the Government Aid Package would be set aside for the pig sector.
Around 200 members of the British Pig Industry demonstrated outside parliament with two crates of tethered sows to show the difference in animal welfare between UK pigs and those from other European countries supplying pig meat to supermarkets. No doubt shouting our animal welfare is the best in the world. How hypocritical!
British pig farmers export to the continent tens of thousands of breeding sows each year, last year the figure was 180,000, many will be tethered in sow stalls, a system which has been illegal in the UK since 1.1.99.
Sow stalls are metal-barred stalls so narrow that the sow cannot even turn round, the sow may have a collar around her neck and be chained to the ground. Here she stays for 16 1/2 weeks until she is due to give birth, then she will be moved to the farrowing crate (which are still widely used in the UK). Again a metal crate which will not allow her to turn round and she will give birth unable to even mother her young.
These bright intelligent animals will be imprisoned for most of their life, suffering from chronic physical discomfort, reduced bone strength, inflammation of joints and increased susceptibility to urinary tract infections, and no doubt engaging in highly repetitive behaviour. In other words going mad.
Each year the UK imports millions of kilos of pig meat from Belgium. This means that some of the meat from the pigs born to UK sows exported to Belgian sow stalls may well be sent back to the UK. It is a scandal that we are exporting our sows to be reared on the continent in a system which is illegal in the UK, and then will probably be re-importing some of the resultant pig meat.
MARGARET GIBBINS
Address supplied.