A prominent Suffolk farmer is quitting the pig industry after a dire 12 months for the sector.
Fourth generation pig farmer George Gittus, of Symonds Farm near Bury St Edmunds, decided enough was enough in February.
The pig industry has been racked by crisis - leading to an exodus of smaller players and a consolidation of businesses. Prices plummeted over the last year while costs soared. A chronic shortage of labour brought on by Brexit and the pandemic resulted in huge backlogs and delays at abattoirs. Pigs were stuck on farms, eating through farmers' profits. They became overweight and therefore less commercially viable and the industry was brought to its knees. The Russian invasion of Ukraine war on February 24 exacerbated problems for the industry as feed prices rocketed.
It was a tough decision for George as pigs have played a major part in the Gittus family business going back more than 100 years. His great grandfather, grandfather and father all kept them and son, Freddie - who works on the farm - was the fifth generation to be involved. They adopted an outdoor regime and bred pedigree pigs. With the pigs spending all their lives outdoors there was "no better system", he said. But it had become a loss-maker - making it increasingly unviable.
"I'm afraid we've decided to call it a day. We have lost money - like most other pig producers this last 12 months - but we also sadly don't see a future for independents like us.
"The industry either has restructured itself or is broken to the extent it doesn't see a future for what we are doing or how we do it."
George - who also runs a successful arable operation and business park with a biogas plant at his farm off the A14 at Saxham - said in the early 1990s they had 2,000 sows but that was cut to 550 in the early 2000s. This year, he made the difficult decision to sell his herd. The last weaning sows, along with some pigs they are finishing, are all that is left. The three-strong team which runs the unit - at a rented site at Brandon - are being laid off.
"We made the decision in February we were going to close the herd," he said. "Our financial year is at the end of February. We looked at what we had lost and what we forecast going forward this next 12 months."
They could have toughed it out, he said, but felt they had reached the end of the road. "We are not alone, unfortunately," he said. "We have been been keeping pigs for over 100 years. We are pedigree Essex Pig breeders and Large White breeders so it was a tough decision to make from that point of view."
When the final sow leaves, George will retain about eight piglets on the farm on a "hobby" basis so that he and his family can still enjoy home-grown pork.
The last major contraction the business suffered was back in 2004 - when 20 of his workers were laid off - following a particularly fraught period for the industry. In the early 2000s, classical swine fever was followed by foot-and-mouth outbreaks which closed down the countryside and crisis followed. There was a financial fall-out and he had to sell 1,000 acres. Such was the enormous stress, George suffered a nervous breakdown. He recovered, and has kept the farm business on track.
Seeing the last sows go has been a sad moment - but he has been supported by wife, Jayne, and children, Hetty and Freddie.
"It's tough and I agonised and I put my management team and my wife and family through hell because I fought tooth and nail to see if it could work," he said. "It was probably equally stressful (compared to 2004) but having had my breakdown I have learnt how to manage it."
Those in the industry "care passionately", he said. Tragically, during the last major pig crisis of the early 2000s, there were even some suicides, he added, "but not to date this time around". He has developed his own coping mechanisms to help him deal with the stress - having learnt from his experience in 2004, he said.
But he added: "There are a lot of people who have put themselves under a lot of financial pressure and physical and mental pressure because we love what we do. We also care about the people who work for us and everybody invested in it so it's a big heart-wrench."
The problem, said George, is that while consumers say they want high environmental and welfare standards they don't want to pay for it. Cheap imports of pig meat produced to lower standards increasingly undercut the domestic market. Since he has been involved in the industry, he has seen the UK's self-sufficiency in pork production plummet - which saddens him greatly. But while UK farmers were - rightly - held to a high standard, there was not the same expectation for imported produce, he argued.
"Everybody has been expecting everything to keep going down in price," he said. "We are exporting everything - including our conscience."
Other notable Suffolk operators have also downsized recently. Blacks of Bacton took the difficult decision to sell its sows and pare the business down to pig finishing because the financial side was no longer stacking up. Peter Mortimer of Metfield in north Suffolk decided to quit the industry but is now running a bed-and-breakfast service for another pig operation - Peddars Pigs in south Norfolk
Although edging upwards, the price farmers get for their pigs is still below £2/kg - and has been far lower in recent times. The cost of producing a pig in the UK is estimated at around £2.44/kg - but the average price being paid in August was about 197p - still rendering it loss-making.
National Farmers' Union (NFU) East regional director Zoe Leach was formerly chief executive National Pig Association (NPA) before moving to her new role in August this year.
"During the current crisis we estimate we’ve lost 60k sows already and more will go – this equates to about 15% of the national sow herd," she said.
Before the crisis, the UK was able to produce about 55-60% of its pork but because of carcase balance issues and as a result of trade it exports around 15-20% of what it produces. As a result, just 40% of the pork eaten in Britain is produced here – and the rest is imported, largely from the European Union, she said.
"Lord knows what the impact of losing all those sows will be on that figure though but because it takes nine to 10 months for a pig to reach market weight. The gap in pigs is only just starting to come through now and won’t really be properly felt until September."
For anyone suffering mental anguish, rural mental health charity YANA (You Are Not Alone) can be contacted on 0300 323 0400 or helpline@yanahelp.org.
Farming Community Network’s helpline is 03000 111 999 or help@fcn.org.uk
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