By Jack Bosworth, Director, FJ Bosworth & Sons. Published 4 October 2021.
I hope everyone is well.
I would much rather be writing this month about unit performance and the projects we have on at the farm. That has to be parked. The pig industry continues to be hit with one problem after another, without any of the previous ones being resolved, and it is creating carnage at farm level. Every producer needs to keep highlighting it in whatever way they can.
A conservative description of life on our farm right now
To suggest that life here is challenging at the moment would be, let us say, conservative.
It has been a rarity to sell our weekly target numbers for months. The consequences of that are felt everywhere on the unit:
- Feed requirements go up.
- Water requirements go up.
- Slurry storage fills faster.
- Accommodation runs out as pigs back up through the system.
- And sales, the one number that pays for all of the above, go down.
It is not the report any farmer wants to take to their bank manager.
Waiting for a light at the end of the tunnel
Everyone in the sector has been waiting for a way out of this crisis. Some producers have already made the call to pack up. Others continue to struggle on, hoping the situation will turn.
We do have a backlog here. Honestly though, we are more fortunate than many. That comes down to long-standing, healthy working relationships with nearby family-run abattoirs, who themselves are doing everything they can to support producers in spite of their own labour pressures. We are very grateful for that, and it is exactly the kind of relationship you cannot build overnight.
Welfare culls are not an abstract risk
For many producers, welfare culls are now imminent. This is the part the government does not seem to grasp.
Production cannot simply be switched off when the going gets tough. The sows keep farrowing, the piglets keep growing, and the system keeps moving whether the abattoirs can take the finished pigs or not. When that flow stops, the only options left are awful ones.
I will admit, I had assumed that no government would actually allow a catastrophe on the scale that is now being predicted. After hearing the Prime Minister’s response on The Andrew Marr Show, that assumption looks naive. The attitude of “let us see what happens” is an insult to every pig farmer in the UK who is staring this down right now.
A practical fix that is being ignored
There is a workable, targeted solution sitting on the table. Temporary Covid Recovery Visas, used in pork processing, would allow throughput at the abattoirs to rise. That would clear the backlog. It is not radical, it is not permanent, and it is not a precedent that breaks anything else.
Using them in the pig industry does not appear to be of interest to this government. The preferred position remains “see what happens”, while imports continue to fill supermarket shelves and thousands of perfectly good British pigs end up wasted.
If that is “building back better”, count me out.
About the author
Jack Bosworth is a fourth-generation farmer and Director of FJ Bosworth & Sons, an arable and pig farming business at Spains Hall, Willingale, Essex. The farm has been in the family since 1919, and Jack farms alongside his father Stuart Bosworth, who was named Farmers Weekly Pig Farmer of the Year in 2011. The business is Red Tractor assured.
You can follow Jack’s articles on fjbosworth.com, or get in touch via the WhatsApp link on the site.
Fourth-generation farmer at Spains Hall, Willingale. Runs the contracting team and writes most of what appears here.