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Ministers are considering plans to ease visa restrictions for up to 1,000 foreign butchers, according to The Times.
The National Pig Association (NPA) has warned of a crisis in the pig industry due to a lack of labourers which could impact food supplies over Christmas.
Farmers could be forced to cull hundreds of pigs to ease the pressure on the workers.
NPA chairman Rob Mutimer told Radio 4: “This is happening on pig farms all over the country, farms of all different sizes being backed up and running out of space for their animals, which is a real worry coming into winter.
“It involves either shooting pigs on the farm or taking them to an abattoir, killing the animal, and actually disposing of them in the skip at the end of the chain.
“These animals won’t go into the food chain, they will either be rendered or, if not, sent for incineration. It’s an absolute travesty.
“On our farm, our pigs are usually around 115kg when they go to slaughter and they’re now around the 140kg mark so the pens and the sheds weren’t designed for animals of this size and we’re really heading into an acute welfare disaster very quickly.”
The Government says it is “continuing to work closely” with the pig industry.
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