THE PLIGHT OF THE PIG IN THE NANNY STATE - MEAT: A Benign Extravagance - page 60

Even so, at the beginning of the 21st century, 60 per cent of pig production was still tak-
ing place in people's backyards. The Chinese Government Feed Office estimates that in the
years 2003 and 2004 China produced around 47 million tonnes of pork, 18 million tonnes
of it on commercial farms, using only about 30 million tonnes of commercial feed. 28 It
seems likely that the 28 million tonnes produced in Chinese backyards - which is about 31
per cent of the entire world's pork production - is still produced at a low feed to meat ratio.
Despite the drift towards factory farms, the Chinese show that it is entirely feasible to feed
large numbers of pigs on a diet which is 50 per cent waste, just as Britain did up until quite
recently.
But while the Chinese pig industry is thriving, the UK industry is in trouble. The Stand
By Your Ham campaign was a reaction to something close to a collapse of the British pig
industry. The number of pigs in the UK declined from 8.1 million in 1998 to 4.8 million
in 2007. 29 The British are still eating just as much pork, but around 60 per cent of it is im-
ported, primarily from factories in Denmark and the Netherlands, where they are fed on a
diet high in imported feed, but also from France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Belgium, USA
and Poland. 30 UK pig farmers complain, probably rightly, that they are disadvantaged by
more stringent animal welfare legislation than in other countries. If Lord Haskins' figures
are correct we are importing roughly the same quantity of pork and bacon as we could sup-
ply from post-farmgate food waste.
However, this is not such an ill wind. Over the last few years there has also been a dis-
cernible rise in the number of backyard and small-scale pigkeepers. There are no figures
for this, and if there were they would be insignificant; but the shift in attitudes towards
pigs, influenced by the campaigns of celebrity chefs like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and
the TV pigman Jimmy Doherty, is gathering pace. No cottage pig-keeper has any problem
finding buyers for non-industrial pork or home cured bacon.
Many of these small-scale producers will be giving whatever food waste they have to
their pigs, because that is what pigs are for. Often this is a minimal quantity, compared to
a pig's voracious appetite: the amount of food wasted by a normal family is nowhere near
enough to fatten a hog. But if the pigs are part of a community, or kept on a mixed farm, or
there are obliging neighbours, or there is a dairy, brewery, market, or even a supermarket
with unlocked skips nearby, then the amount of waste food available can be quite signific-
ant.
This trend may well be a sign of things to come. If the fossil-fuel dependent industrial
farming system gradually collapses under the weight of its own contradictions, we will
have to reabsorb pigs into the life of the community. Pigs will be kept in small numbers on
mixed farms, in woodlands, at schools and prisons, near hospitals, behind restaurants and
pubs, on allotments, at city farms and by neighbourhood pig clubs. Waste food will be re-
cycled by the shortest possible route, according to DEFRA's own 'proximity principle'. 31