Lukewarm response to new report that maps way ahead for pig sector

Producers remain bitter after aid plea snubbed

By Joe Watson

Published:

The future of Scotland’s pig industry has been mapped out in a new report that calls for greater collaboration throughout the supply chain, more product innovation and increased competition.

The 126-page strategic review – published yesterday by Scottish Government quango Quality Meat Scotland – provides various ideas to secure the future of a sector that has in the last 12 months been ravaged by foot-and-mouth, unprofitable ex-farm prices and a huge surge in production costs.

There are, however, considerable doubts if the aims of the review can be achieved as producers still remain deeply upset with the Scottish Government after it last month snubbed all the requests for assistance put forward by a special industry taskforce it set up earlier this year.

The anger was still evident yesterday as Sandy Howie, the chairman of supply co-operative Scottish Pig Producers, questioned if the government would proactively engage with industry in responding to the new report or continue to ignore the very real need to return cash to pig farmers and make good some of the extra costs they endured in the foot-and-mouth outbreaks.

He said: “We are totally disillusioned and feel really cheesed off at the minister (Richard Lochhead) who set up the previous taskforce and asked it to come up with ideas. He then ignored all those ideas and recommendations. The situation beggars belief and we cannot see how any more good will come out of this new strategic review. Either they want to help us or they don’t.”

He questioned the need for more discussions in the wake of the review, saying it would duplicate work already done by the previous taskforce and which Mr Lochhead declined to back.

The new report suggests Scotland requires a minimum sow herd of at least 45,000 supplying 20,000 finished pigs a week for the sector to be viable in the long term. But quite how that can be achieved is open to question as the herd in the year to June fell to 36,960 sows. There is currently little appetite among producers for expansion because of the losses they endured.

The report touts the need for greater competition for finished pigs, suggesting a significant other buyer or processor is found in the Scottish market. It questions why sows are still being shipped weekly from Scotland to Essex for slaughter, adding a Scottish abattoir should instead be persuaded to take this up. There are calls too for investment in the processing sector, but it fails to say how this be achieved when margins in the sector are wafer thin.

The review also calls for improvements in economic analysis and greater sharing of information between producers. It too suggests the inclusion of the pig sector in the monitor farm network so it can better respond to environmental and pollution challenges.

There is a plea for “generous grant aid” to help pig farmers comply with nitrate vulnerable zone controls and for assistance to be provided to smaller processors to target niche markets with Scottish pigmeat products.

The need to eliminate endemic disease is highlighted and there is a new plea for new efficiencies to be found across the supply chain.

A greater focus on new product development and more innovative uses of pigmeat is recommended.

QMS chairman Donald Biggar said the organisation looked forward to working with industry and government to secure short-term stability and at the same time investment in measures that offered long-term profitability. Mr Lochhead said he was more than aware of the difficulties faced by pig producers. The government was actively working with industry to decide the most effective means of using the £700,000 support package it announced last month.

NFU Scotland pointed to many producers still questioning their future in the sector because of global factors and the Scottish Government’s so far less than acceptable response to their plight.