Everyone else is making a profit apart from the pig farmers

TWELVE years ago pig farmers, including me, were out in force demonstrating at supermarkets and other places as they were making big losses on every pig sold.

Now I see (Yorkshire Post, May 19) they are going to do so again and have done so regularly over those 12 years. So what’s changed? Pig output has halved, 70 per cent of pig farms have closed, the workforce is probably down by 60 per cent and labelling has improved but is still not good enough.

If pig farmers had done nothing by now there would be little British pork, bacon, ham or sausages on the shelves. Everyone but the farmer, from farm to shop, is making a profit, such as Cranswick last week (Yorkshire Post, May 17) and all the supermarkets recently.

If demonstrations do take place there will be far fewer farmers there. Another big change is that most pig buyers do not announce a pig price until they know how many pigs are available.

It takes almost a year to produce a pig but they want to buy weekly. By now there should have been a relationship established so everyone involved shared profit or loss.

If this does not happen soon pig output will fall again. For Sainsbury to say they will pay 5p extra when losses are 18p (Yorkshire Post, May 19) is welcome but simply not good enough.

From: Barbara Gill, Great Ouseburn, York.

REGARDING the article “Supermarkets to pay more for British farm pork”, had the Government forced the supermarkets into charging a minimum price per unit for alcohol then surely that extra profit could have be used to give the farmers a better price for their products.

It would also give a much needed boost to the pub industry and in the long term, reduce costs for the NHS.

One has to ask why the Government will not grasp this nettle when such obvious benefits are there to be seen.