Vol. 72/No. 20      May 19, 2008

“We don’t want any special treatment. All we are asking for is a fairer share,” Richard Longthorp, a pig farmer from Howden in Yorkshire told BBC in March. “Feed represents around 50 percent of our costs and this has gone up massively. Prices are going up but we’re not getting a share of it.”

Small farmers say they lose around £26 (£1=US$2) for every pig slaughtered. According to family farmer Andrew Baugh from Nottingham, the price of soybeans has increased from £150 to £270 a metric ton, rapeseed from £160 to £385 a metric ton, and wheat from £70 to £170 a metric ton.

Several hundred pig farmers protested outside the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street March 4 to demand relief. Banners included slogans such as, “Pigs are worth it,” and “Dear supermarkets: Fair trade starts at home. Pay British pig farmers a fair price.” Protestors said about 60 percent of pig farmers have been driven off their land in the last 10 years.

Small family farmer Mark Batchelor, from the National Pig Association and National Union of Farmers said, “A lot of my friends have gone out [of farming] already… . All I can do is cut into my savings.”

Stuart Calton raises animals and grows arable food, including his own feed. He hires one full-time and one part-time worker. Both Stuart and his brother Karl said that many of their peers have opted out of farming and now work on the roads. Around two or three are forced to leave farming every week, they said.

As working farmers are devastated, giant agricultural companies are using the crisis as an excuse to put the squeeze on the workers they employ. Grampian Country Food Group, Scotland’s biggest pig producer, is reducing its output by upwards of 40,000 pigs annually, the second time the company has cut sows in a year. Workers at Grampian’s large plant near Edinburgh, Scotland, say production has been cut to four days a week several times this year, affecting many workers’ paychecks.

Grampian is cutting sow production not only on its giant farms, but also from contract growers. Workers at the plant report that several pig farmers have told them they are being forced off the land.  
 
 
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