So, happy pigs equals tasty meat, which begs the question why is programme Jamie Saves Our Bacon. He showed harrowing footage
the majority of pork in shops from intensively reared farms when of pregnant sows locked in tiny stalls, where they remain for most
Jamie’s system clearly works? of their three-month pregnancy. The pigs can barely move and all
“Pigs are farmed intensively because financial constraints have their natural instincts to look after their piglets are suppressed. It is
driven the farmers to it,” he says. “It is not something they do a miserable and frustrating existence.
through choice. Perhaps they were unwittingly guilty of losing sight Fortunately, it is banned in Britain and is due to be banned
of the product because across Europe by 2013,
economics took over. That can
happen in any industry. “A decade ago there were 25,000
although even then farms will
be allowed to keep sows in
“You can produce something
in a welfare-friendly manner at a
pig farmers and now there are
these cramped conditions for
four weeks after giving birth.
sensible cost if you stop putting
them on lorries, transporting
11,000 – some farmers
Pork produced within this
system from places like
them across the country, then
bringing them back, then
committed suicide after their
Denmark is still widely sold in
supermarkets and bought by
packing them somewhere else,
businesses went bankrupt”
the British public – a recent
then taking them to the shop report by a Commons select
– it’s these costs that are killing committee said that almost
pig farming. 500,000 tonnes of pigmeat imported every year would be illegal
“If you can get back to local farmers supplying to local people if produced on British farms. And it is destroying our pig farming
with local meat, farmers will be better off. For instance, while our industry. The pig herd in this country has halved – a decade
sausages are more expensive than your basic supermarket range, ago there were 25,000 pig farmers and now there are 11,000
we are cheaper than the premium brands – Tesco’s dry cured – and some farmers committed suicide after their businesses
bacon, which is British but not free-range, is £5 a kilo dearer went bankrupt.
than mine.”
Despite this, much of the pork eaten by five million Brits each From farm to fork
day is intensively farmed and from foreign shores. Celebrity chef The message from Jamie Oliver’s programme is to buy free-range,
Jamie Oliver highlighted the problems British pig farmers face in his outdoor-reared or outdoor-bred pork, and always buy British a174
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