Pig farmers mull over impact of likely welfare changes

New welfare rules are looming for the pig sector and Irish farmers are trying to get ahead of the curve.

The 'WelFarmers' project aims to help farmers meet the challenges posed by these potential changes and it was a key component of this year's Pig Farmers' Conference, day two of which was hosted at Cavan's Farnham Estate on Wednesday last.

“We have known for the last couple of years that some changes are coming to the European pig welfare legislation that will ultimately be implemented here,” explains Amy Quinn of Teagasc. “We were originally expecting it to be introduced some time last year, but that was delayed, so this project was designed in response to the changes they know are coming based on a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) report.”

Elections to the European Parliament stymied progress of the new welfare requirments, but it's anticipated that change will come, albeit with a generous transition period, in the years ahead.

“The delay is an opportunity for us to get our voices heard at an earlier stage, before the changes do come in,” Amy assures.

WelFarmers is the platform for the sector to have its say. Funded by Horizon Europe - which is a tool of the EU Commission. It brings together pig farmers, pig farming organisations, advisors, researchers, veterinarians, and other industry stakeholders to identify key welfare challenges and on-farm good practices.

Across the eight participating countries it focuses on four key areas: the cage ban, managing pigs with undocked tails, space allowance, and pain avoidance during castration identified in the 2022 EFSA report. The fourth area is not relevant to Ireland as pigs are not castrated here.

Cage ban, in the Welfarmers context, means moving from farrowing crates to loose lactating.

“The sows either farrow loose or farrow confined for a number of days and then are loose for the rest of their lactation period,” explains Amy. “To do this you need a bigger pen, but to have a bigger pen you either have to build [a larger unit] or reduce your sow numbers. All these things come at a cost.

“Also there's the challenges like planning permission; also challenges on how to manage these systems - how best to do it and maintain sow and piglet welfare, maintain staff welfare and safety and manage hygiene,” she regards.

“It is a good example of where this project comes in - they are the types of challenges that we are identifying in the project and the next step in the project is to identify best practice solutions that are out there to help deal with some of these challenges. Then once those best practises are identified, then we can train people in these best practises as best we can.”

While they know the issues the legislation will tackle, the specific details are still yet to be finalised. As such they can't predict which area will present the largest challenge.

“It's hard to know how they are going to implement these things, so for the farrowing crates, for example, we don't know the exact dimensions they are going to have to implement,” says Amy.

Sarah Hanley of the IFA is also involved in the WelFarmers project. She welcomes it is not a prescriptive approach by a “scientist who has never been to a pig farm”, and since it is driven by the Commission, hopes it’s input will be taken on board in drafting the legislation.

“This one allows a bottom-up approach, which includes farmers, so it's not: this is being put on you. You are being involved in the project from the ground up, so hopefully it will result in getting practises that actually work on a farm and are implementable, which would hopefully mean they are more sustainable,” Sarah says.

The IFA Pig & Poultry Executive believes a “really important” aspect of the project is in it’s aims to identify what has worked elsewhere, but also “critically, what doesn't work”.

The discussion of pig welfare is happening during a period of relatively favourable conditions. Specialist adviser Michael McKeon of Tegasc Moorepark recalls that up to spring 2023, the Irish pig sector had been enduring losses for 21 consecutive months.

“Since March of 2023 it's been profitable,” Michael explains, saying there were a number of factors behind this upturn.

“There was a big reduction in the sow herd all across Europe because of the losses over the previous two years. Because of the high feed costs due to the Ukraine war and high energy costs etc a lot of units went out of business, and all acros Europe there was a big reduction in the sow herd - it reduced by about 9.5%.”

That reduction in sows saw a tightening of supply which sent pig prices upwards.

“At the same time feed ingredient prices have been falling because the market has adjusted to the Ukrainian war, and feed ingredient prices have been falling since. That has opened up a profit margin, which is badly needed because it was the deepest loss-making in 40 years.”

While the average loss to Irish farmers was €500K, Michael credits the “exceptional payment” of up to €120K from the government in helping many farmers “keep the lights on”.

This was crucial locally as Cavan remains the dominant county in the Irish pork sector with at least 20% of pig numbers. Despite the assistance Ireland still lost about 10% of its sow herd.

“Our sow herd would have gone from roughly 146K back to 132-134K sows and a lot of that was in the northern half of the country,” he says.

While the pork sector is enjoying a stable period, it frequently lurches from one financial crisis to another. The Celt wonders about the farmers' concerns with these further requirements on the horizon. Amy says when Ireland's WelFarmers met as regional group they gauged the concerns of farmers.

“We sought to find out the top challenges they thought would be associated for each of those three topics, and for each one it was cost. Each one comes at a big cost, and it's how do you mitigate that? Does the price of the product increase? Probably not, is it funding subsidies?”

This is a particularly delicate issue considering the consuerms' expectation for pork to be a relatively cheap meat, and the risk to the EU suppliers being priced out f the market given the threat posed by supply coming from countries with lower welfare thresholds.

“We are obviously competing in a global market,” says Sarah. “If we are trying to produce pigs at an absolutely top standard in terms of welfare - which costs money - we have to get something to pay for that. So if it's a European drive for farmers to make these moves and make these significant investments we either have to get a premium from the market to pay for that, or the EU will ultimately have to fund a lot of this.”

Amy echoes: “It's going to affect our competitiveness, that is another concern.”