Pig farmers (and Winnie) protest at Downing Street

Mar 5 2008 by Damon Wake, The Journal

HUNDREDS of pig farmers protested outside Downing Street yesterday to highlight the crisis threatening the industry.

The campaigners, who have the backing of Gordon Ramsay and other celebrity chefs, say pig farmers lose about £26 for every pig sold for slaughter in the UK.

The British Pig Executive blames soaring wholesale grain costs, which have doubled in a year, pushing up the cost of feeding livestock.

Bpex chairman Stewart Houston led a delegation which delivered a 10,000 signature petition to Number 10 calling for help.

“We have been struggling with losses of £26 per pig for over six months,” Mr Houston said.

“The supply chain is obviously not working and we are looking for the Government to take action so that producers receive justifiable costs of production.”

He said that although supermarkets had begun to raise prices on pork products, little of that had found its way back to producers.

A ruling last year by the Office of Fair Trading that supermarkets were guilty of fixing milk prices had scared the retailers away from discussing prices with pig suppliers, he said.

Joining yesterday’s demonstration was Winnie the pig, a veteran of a similar campaign in 2001.

She dozed in a pen in Whitehall while protesters waved placards around her.

Former Tory MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine also lent their support.

Mrs Hamilton, the former face of British Sausage Week, said she was delighted to be supporting the Pigs Are Worth It! campaign. “It’s a disgrace the minimal amount of money that trickles down to people that produce pigs,” she said.

“We all need to pull together: it’s down to the consumer to eat more pork and the supermarkets to pay the farmer more to produce pigs.” Jonathan Bradley, a pig farmer from Stowmarket, Suffolk, warned that if no action was taken to save the British pork industry, the country would become dependent on imports.

“If you think you pay a lot now for food, just think what it would be like if there was no pig industry,” he said.

In a separate move, a group of about 30 pig farmers have recorded their own version of the Tammy Wynette classic Stand By Your Man – changed to Stand By Your Ham.

The recording can be heard online via the pigsareworthit.com website.