Thousands of East Yorkshire pigs culled due to butcher shortage

Almost 10,000 pigs in East Yorkshire have been culled and burnt due to a lack of workers to process the animals, a vet has said.

Duncan Berkshire said many pigs were left stuck on farms rather than being sent to abattoirs, despite government attempts to recruit extra butchers.

The National Pig Association said as a result some abattoirs were running at 25% below their usual capacity.

One breeder said the problems had left farmers in a "terrible place mentally".

Abattoir labour shortages have been blamed on Brexit and the Covid pandemic.

Kate Morgan, who runs a farm near Driffield, said a lot of pig breeders had gone out of business

"It's been emotionally a challenging year, financially it's crippling," she said.

"We're very grateful for the government stepping in and delivering a package for us, however that has not solved the problems on farms at all."

Ms Morgan said the backlog of pigs coupled with an increase in feed prices meant she was losing £25 on each animal.

"I've been angry and upset," she said.

"Some farmers will be in a terrible place mentally."

Figures from Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show that Yorkshire is the UK's largest pig breeding area, accounting for 37% of the country's total output.

In October the government said it would allow 800 foreign abattoir workers into the UK on temporary visas.

In addition Defra said it is paying abattoirs to slaughter more pigs and hiring cold storage facilities to store the carcasses.

A spokesperson said it was "working closely" with the industry to address the backlog.

Specialist pig vet Mr Berkshire said the culling of healthy animals had "devastated" everybody working in the industry.

"I hope we never seen anything like this again," he said.

"To suddenly be looking at a wasted animal's life when we've done everything we can to make sure they've had the best life possible to enter the food chain is just abhorrent."

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