IFA calls for Department support to boost pig welfare

Now is the time for the Department of Agriculture to back the next generation of pig farmers to both secure the sector’s future and to boost animal welfare standards, according to Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) pig executive Sarah Hanley.

High prices leave pig farmers well placed to invest this year and farmers have a willingness to raise welfare standards, Hanley said.

However, a handful of overly-restrictive terms in the Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Scheme III (TAMS) will push them to go without grant aid and build to a lower than TAMS specification, she added.

The policy executive was speaking at the Irish Pig Health Society symposium on Tuesday and suggested that she had spoken with a number of young farmers looking to upgrade facilities, but were unwilling to go down the TAMS 3 route, with the reasons cited being the higher specs and low investment ceiling.

“We have several young farmers that are taking on existing businesses,” Hanley told the pig sector meeting.

“We are after having a record year for pig prices. This is our moment.

“We have one moment to move welfare forward and I don’t want to say that sounding like ‘this will change the world’, but we have the potential to change our sector and the welfare of our pigs on farm. And, in turn, improve our performance.”

Intact tails

Hanley was one of the attendees who raised questions with the feasibility of rearing pigs with intact tails, as is the EU’s current policy objective.

“There is mention about the other pig producers across the continent – the Finns are mentioned as an example – those people are getting paid a significant premium for the price of their pigs with long tails.

“I’m not saying that it can’t be done. What I am saying [is] there are some conditions where it probably is not advisable to be done.”

Head of the Teagasc pig development department Edgar Manzanilla told the meeting that an approach of providing incentives could have been a better policy option for the EU to have pursued in its goal of seeing pigs reared with intact tails, citing the example of tax breaks for electric cars as a means of encouraging their uptake.

Manzanilla stated that Teagasc will attempt to find solutions to rearing pigs with intact tails as long as it remains EU policy.