'Oh bring us some pigs in blankets': Yorkshire pig farmers rework Christmas carol to urge people to buy British

After one of the toughest years in business, pig farmers may not have a lot to sing about.

But farmers from East Yorkshire were doing their best to get into the festive spirit –while urging consumers to buy British.

Gathered around a tractor at Hayton, the group performed their own version of the traditional carol, We Wish You A Merry Christmas, yesterday (on Thursday).

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Their lyrics include: “We’d wish you’d bite into British And keep us all here” and has a resounding chorus of “Oh bring us some pigs in blankets”.

The group performed their own version of the traditional carol, We Wish You A Merry ChristmasThe group performed their own version of the traditional carol, We Wish You A Merry Christmas
The group performed their own version of the traditional carol, We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Pig farmer Kate Morgan and her sister Vicky, who are the second generation of her family to farm pigs near Driffield, have become familiar faces in the media arguing the case to Save GB Bacon.

They picketed the Conservative Party conference, spoken at The Yorkshire Post’s Country Week Conference and appeared on ITV’s This Morning.

The farm has 1,700 breeding sows and they sell about 90,000 pigs a year which are reared on around 25 farms in the area.

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Ms Morgan said they had lost hundreds of thousands of pounds because of abattoir labour shortages, which means they have to keep the pigs longer.

Their version of the song includes a resounding chorus of “Oh bring us some pigs in blankets”.Their version of the song includes a resounding chorus of “Oh bring us some pigs in blankets”.
Their version of the song includes a resounding chorus of “Oh bring us some pigs in blankets”.

The pigs need feeding, but are worth less the bigger they get.

She urged shoppers to look at the small print and not be misled by packaging to find out where the meat is coming from.

She said: “At the moment they are bringing in other meat and butchering it in this country, although we haven’t enough butchers here apparently.

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“We want people to leave the foreign stuff on the shelves. We’d also like the retailers to step up and look after us a lot more.

“We don’t know whether retailers are asking for British but the processors are selling them with European products or retailers don’t care where they are getting them from.”

In October, the Government said it would allow 800 foreign abattoir workers into the UK on temporary visas. But the National Pig Association believes less than 100 foreign workers have applied for the visas – and said the crisis would continue into 2022.

Figures show that Yorkshire is the UK’s largest pig breeding area, accounting for 37 per cent of the nation’s total output.

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