'Hard pill to swallow': Why a farmer's newest pig litter will be one of the last

Why farmers are having to unwillingly cull their pigs, explains ITV News Reporter Chloe Keedy

At Fir Tree Farm in Suffolk today, they welcomed another 12 piglets into the world.

Over the course of half a century, pig farmer Peter Mortimer has reared hundreds of thousands of pigs - but this litter will be one of the very last. 

Their mum is one of 140 sows Mr Mortimer kept especially for breeding, but soon she will be sent to be slaughtered.

He has already sent more than 100 sows to slaughter, because he says that producing pigs is now costing, rather than making him money. 

Peter told ITV News: "The value of the pigs is going down every week, the price of the food is going up… and across the country there’s a shortage of workers.

"It’s just not financially sustainable when for every pig I sell I’m losing £10-£15."

Wheat is one of the main ingredients in Peter’s pig feed, and he says the price of it has risen by more than 30% in the past six months. 

The meat industry is also grappling with labour shortages.

Earlier this week, the National Pig Association said that at least 600 healthy pigs have already been slaughtered on British farms because of a backlog caused by a shortage of abattoir workers. 

Mr Mortimer said he also can’t get the staff he needs and blames Brexit.

The farmer said: "We haven’t had the eastern European workers coming over.

"The government has set these high qualifications to come over but we can’t all have a degree".

"We put an ad in the local paper. I got nobody applying at all," he added.

"To think it’s all going to be ghost town after I built the farm 50 years ago… it’s been a very hard pill to stomach at times."

By spring Peter says he’ll have sold all 1,200 of the pigs he is currently rearing, and the business he started with his dad half a century ago will be shut down. 

The government told ITV News it understands the challenges the pig industry has faced over the past few months, and said it's doing what it can to make the industry more attractive to UK workers.

Late last week, a spokesperson for the Department For Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told the PA news agency it was aware of labour shortages in the meat industry.

“We understand the importance of seasonal labour and we are aware of the challenges that the pig industry has faced in recent months because of the Covid-19 pandemic and labour shortages, and Defra has been working closely with the pig and processing sectors during this time,” he said.

“We are keeping the market under close review and continuing to work closely with the sector to explore options to address the pressures industry is currently facing”, he added.