Pig farmers launch court action

Winnie the pig leads protests in the capital

More than 500 pig farmers have demonstrated outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London at the start of a legal battle seeking compensation from the government.

Farmers want £200m because they say the government failed to provide aid to the industry following the BSE crisis.

Unlike beef and sheep farmers they have had to meet the costs of tough new regulations concerning animal feed, introduced after the BSE crisis.

They have rejected a new government aid package as inadequate and are taking Agriculture Minister Nick Brown to court for "unlawfully discriminating" against them.

Pig farmers think the government has treated them unfairly

Led by their mascot Winnie the pig, about 500 farmers gathered in central London for a demonstration at the start of judicial review proceedings brought by the British Pig Industry Support Group (BPISG).

Eleanor Sharpston QC, appearing for BPISG, accused Mr Brown of "a failure to act - and to act adequately".

At the start of a two-day hearing, she told Mr Justice Richards that in March the government had proposed an aid package to the European Commission offering pig farmers up to £26m in the first year, and £20m in each of the two subsequent years.

Ms Sharpston said: "The pig industry has sustained, since BSE, losses of some £266m - and continuing. I say that is a failure to act adequately."

'Unique burden'

Beef and sheep farmers received substantial state assistance to compensate for the additional costs caused by the ban on mammalian meat and bone meal (MBM), in order to control the spread of BSE infection.

The pig industry was not directly affected by BSE but was still subject to the ban, and received no similar assistance.

The pig industry has sustained losses of some £266m - I say that is a failure to act adequately

Eleanor Sharpston QC

Ms Sharpston said that what amounted to a BSE tax was placing "a unique burden on the pig industry in this country" and put it at a competitive disadvantage.

Governments have a duty under EU law not to discriminate between competing industries.

But Ms Sharpston said the government had failed to obtain the necessary authorisation from the European Commission so that the pig meat industry could be assisted.

Financial pressures

"The sort of aid that would be required in order to redress the balance and to arrive back at a level playing field is not the sort of aid that has so far been offered by [Mr Brown]," she said.

The National Pig Association estimated farmers had lost as much money in the 18 months to last February as they made in the last 18 years.

Extra public health costs arising from the BSE crisis amounted to an estimated £5.26 extra per pig, although BSE had nothing to do with pig meat.

Cheaply-made foreign pigmeat, mainly from Denmark and The Netherlands, is blamed for threatening the UK farmers' traditional markets.

Estimates of the numbers of UK pig farmers who have gone bust vary between 500 and 2,500, some of whom are said to have committed suicide because of financial pressures.