Export ban creates glut of pigs

Thousands of pigs are languishing on English farms

In the past week a handful of farmers in England have witnessed the mass slaughter of their "livelihoods" as a result of the outbreak of swine fever.

But many other pig farmers face a different dilemma: what can they do with the hundreds of pigs now building up on their farms?

The pigs that are on farms need to be shifted

Pig farmer Neville Kemp

With European Union and North American bans on English pig imports and restrictions on livestock movement, a backlog of pigs is building up.

The full extent of the pig crisis is - only now - becoming apparent, says one Norfolk pig farmer.

Neville Kemp said the glut of pigs was beginning to cause serious problems for farmers.

He said he now has 1,000 pigs, each weighing about 100 kilograms, to feed and house on his small farm in East Harling.

Last week he should have "shifted" 280, but he also has this week's quota and now next week's as an additional burden.

Thousands of pigs have been slaughtered, but others are a burden on their farmers

"The extra tonnage of pig meat sitting on our farms has to be looked after, fed, cared for.

"Then vet and electricity costs, labour and so on - not to mention the housing problem," Mr Kemp told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

He said while the costs to farmer was increasing, the value of their pigs was decreasing and the processors were "no nearer to being able to take them".

"The pigs that are on farms - that are sitting there having grown too big for the system and too big for the processors - need to be shifted," he said.

"It's a massive problem if you consider that I've got about 100 tonnes of pigs sitting there on the hoof and I'm a small farmer and this is multiplied throughout the whole of East Anglia."