Demo closes Malton

12 March 1999

Demo closes Malton

ANGRY pig producers closed a meat-cutting plant owned by Malton Bacon late last week for nearly seven hours in protest against imports of live pigs from Ireland.

About 60 farmers, many of them members of the British Pig Industry Support Group (BPISG), gathered outside the plant at Ossett, West Yorks.

They claimed that up to 85,000 pigs imported into Britain from Ireland last year could have carried the killer disease Aujeszkys.

Meryl Ward of the BPISG accused Malton Bacon of endangering the UK pig industrys Aujeszkys-free status.

Live pigs can be imported from Ireland if they have been vaccinated or their owners can prove the animals come from an Aujeszkys-free herd.