Pig ‘megafarm’ threatens to kill rural tradition

MEGAFARMS are threatening to drive small farmers out of business it was claimed yesterday, as news emerged of an application to build a giant pig unit at Foston, near Derby.

The pigs proposal follows an attempt to build a huge dairy farm at Nocton, Lincolnshire, and yesterday the Soil Association and the World Society for the Protection of Animals published a report saying British farming was on the edge of a “step change”.

It said the impact of megafarms on other farms was an issue nobody had yet addressed but the original Nocton Dairies proposal, for more than 8,000 milkers, could have forced 100 average-size competitors out of business and the Foston “pig factory”, with 2,500 sows producing 1,000 pork carcases a week, would equal the production of 350 of the smallest remaining pig farms.

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The report, Old MacDonald Had A Farm, says: “Many in this country have long looked with horror at the gigantic animal factories that have spread across America. We assume all farm animals will have the opportunity in their lives to feel the sun on their backs, spread their wings or stretch their legs. Even though this view is far from the reality, we have so far avoided the worst excesses. But these developments (Nocton and Foston) could herald a new phase.

“No-one, including the Government and the National Farmers Union, knows just how many farmers will be affected if industrial-scale farming goes ahead – nor do they seem to care.”

The UK head of external affairs for the WSPCA, Simon Pope, said yesterday: “We know from America that the real cost of food produced in factory farms is poor animal welfare, pollution and the economic death knell for thousands of small farmers. That cannot be something we sleepwalk into accepting here.”

Peter Melchett, Soil Association policy director, said: “These huge factory farms could herald a new phase in the way British farmers keep animals, opening the floodgates to similar developments and changing our farming landscape forever.”

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A spokeswoman for Midland Pig Producers said: “Only 40 percent of the pork consumed in the UK is produced here. Any restrictions on British production only result in more coming from elsewhere in the EU.”

Sympathisers pointed out that the Derbyshire project would show a possible future path for environmentally friendly farming by capturing smelly gases and feeding them and all the manure into an anaerobic digester. The Nocton Dairies plan envisaged a similarly enclosed system.

A lot of cattle and pigs are already kept indoors and a lot of farmers cannot see any logical reason not to try for the ultimate in cost efficiency. Saudi Arabia has a farm milking 25,000 cows and Italy has one with 15,000 mother sows producing 10 times that number of piglets.

An NFU official said: “Our view is that there is room for big and small in all sorts of business and the problems farmers face are not caused by their competition but by inadequate returns.”

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Paul Temple, a politically active beef farmer and former NFU vice-president, based near Driffield, said small dairy farms were only viable on the basis of one farmer being over-worked, whereas big ones had to observe employment law and probably created more jobs per head of livestock.

He said: “How big is too big? The logical test is sustainability, not area. And to be honest, the bigger the farm, the more efficient it is likely to be in terms of carbon footprint.

“Most of the objections do not come from within farming. On the other hand, there are several reasons why it is time to have a debate about the future direction of farming.”

William Barnard, who runs a campaigning website and small publishing operation, Grassrootsfood, said: “I don’t doubt that cows in megadairies would be incredibly well looked after. But we have accepted that chickens should not live in shoe boxes. Why start moving cows and pigs into them?”

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