Farmer Focus: Desperate times force us to halve sow herd

It’s a been a terribly sad and stressful couple of weeks.

I made the decision to reduce our pig herd by 50%. This is the pig farm that my grandfather set up after the war.

My grandfather twice won Supreme Champion at the Royal Show in the 1950s for his Large White pigs, and subsequently started the Cotswold Pig Development Company in the 1960s.

I feel like I’m letting him, and my dad, down.

The first of the sows/breeding animals went at the beginning of March. Why? Because we are losing £35 a pig. Over the course of the year that equates to a third of a million pounds.

See also: Pig crisis: Wasted backlog pork could have fed millions

As we all know, the price of feed has skyrocketed over the past year to more than £300/t. Our other costs (electricity, labour, etc) have also increased. 

Our suppliers have passed their increased costs onto us, as you would expect. But, for some reason, we can’t pass our costs onto our customer.

We had been on a great contract with Tesco, based on cost of production. But Tesco decided to terminate this in October, with the promise of a new model – which we are yet to see sign of. 

We get told what we are going to be paid, and that’s that. The supply chain is broken. What other supply chain works in this way?

Producing a pig takes nine months from conception to slaughter. We can’t just turn off supply to manipulate the market.

These circumstances are causing many independent pig farmers to close or reduce their herd size across the whole of Europe.

Pig prices need to lift, feed prices need to drop, and we need a strong demand for British pork and a fairer supply chain.

Perhaps the dreadful situation in Ukraine will make our government think more seriously about food security… and pigs might fly.

Why aren’t I closing completely when we are losing so much? Well, I can’t quite bring myself to do it. Dad always said the best time to invest and expand is when times are tough.

If we can reduce, consolidate, drive efficiencies, and survive this storm, we will come out stronger the other side.