It seems our Jamie Oliver is just not satisfied with tackling unhealthy School dinners and improving British chicken welfare - he’s now turning his attention to our portly pink friends - the humble pig.
Oliver’s current cookery show, Ministry of Food, set in Rotherham will, come January tackle the issue of the ethical treatment of the UK’s nine million pigs. To raise the profile of the show, Channel 4
are keen to enlist the help of celebrity chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Gordon Ramsay.
Currently, 50 per cent of the pork we consume in the UK is imported from the continent. The show aims to compare the difference in welfare standards of British pigs and their european counterparts.
Oliver and Channel 4 are being praised by the RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming for tackling a pressing but so far ignored issue, and hope that free range sales will increase.
Previously Oliver with Jamie’s Fowl Dinners and Fearnley-Whittingstall with Hugh’s Chicken Run have exposed the horrors surrounding intensive poultry farming and the awful conditions Britian’s chickens are forced to live in.
The publicity and awareness raised from the shows resulted in a stampede to get hold of free-range chickens in the supermarkets with the birds literally flying off the shelves.
His new show is likely to have a similar effect with pigs, as viewers are likily to be shocked by the exposure of some european practices including castration of pigs without giving them anaesthetic.
Pigs are only second to chickens in the animal welfare stakes, and campaigners are calling for more attention to be given to the subject. Although continental practices are thought to be more inhumane than
the UK, pigs here are still kept in tiny and unsuitable spaces.
On the contienent, practices including sow stalls and castration would be illegal or little practiced in the UK.
The network would like to repeat the sucess of their first Food Season 4 and have recently confirmed the new project, with more details to be released soon. A spokeswoman said, “The chicken programme made quite an impact,”
Peter Berry, Oliver;s press chief has announced the specifics of the show would not be detailed just yet. Julia Wrathall, the RSPCA’s head of the farm animals group, said that conditions for British pigs were “very variable”. She added: “There are quite a number of pigs that have very good conditions that but those in small barren pens with no bedding are in conditions that are unacceptable.”
Currently there is little public knowledge about pig farming and the RSPCA want consumers to understand what “outdoor-bred” really involves - where only the mother of the pigs to be slaughtered has lived outside. Pigs that are “outdoor-reared” have better living conditions but still does not automatically mean free range.
Each year British farmers breed millions of pigs, of which 40 per cent of sows live outdoors. The majority of the pigs used for bacon or ham are kept inside. At least 35 per cent of indoor facilities are classed as being “very poor”.
Peter Stevenson, chief policy adviser of Compassion in World Farming, said scientific research proves pigs were the most intelligent farm animals, as bright as dogs, but were seldom able to express their
natural behaviour in intensive farming. A large number were left with no stimulation and no bedding to improve their quality of life, “Pigs suffer from really awful problems and are kept in utterly
inhumane systems,” Stevenson commented, “Anybody who kept a dog in those conditions would be prosecuted.”
CIWF advises consumers to avoid buying pork with the Red Tractor mark, as it signifies the industry’s most basic quality standard. The National Pig Association declined to comment.
