The soul destroying impact of the pig crisis and why its happening
news.sky.com/story/the-soul-destroying-impact...Posted Nov 27, 2021, 9:04 AM UTC
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news.sky.com
Quite a shocking article. As with many of the impacts of Brexit, this is somewhat hidden away behind closed doors so the public isn’t confronted with it, but… awful for the farmers and the pigs of course.
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Yep. Flippancy aside, this is purely caused by a failure of government so, even though the urge to say "I told you so" is strong I think farmers should be directly compensated by gov and given mental health support.
Raising pigs to the best of your ability, knowing they will be killed but go for quality food is one thing. Raising them and then killing them for nothing must be horrible.
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Including the farmers that voted for Brexit?
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They get a mandatory global trade and economics diploma course to educate them on how free market economics work.
How this has directly benefited Europe since the inception of the EU and how the free movement of labour has largely driven growth in EU economies.
They then get a free three week intensive course in brexit-onomics and how it’s all fucking lies.
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and the pigs of course.
Yeah it's awful they're dying instead of... Dying
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So thaaaaat’s why Bojo was talking about Peppa Pig world…
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What a swine!
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Eat less meat.
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Just the thought that we've had to apply for a licence to be able to kill healthy animals actually makes me feel a bit sick.
So they've gone from killing pigs at a fraction of their lifespan to killing pigs at a slightly earlier point in their lifespan? Crocodile tears, they send healthy, young pigs to die all the time.
Go vegan.
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Ty. Outrage over a slight difference in time of performing the same disgusting abhorrent actions is ridiculous. They can’t even see it due to the thirst to point score over brexit.
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If you want to advocate for vegetarianism / veganism, go right ahead - I eat a mainly vegetarian diet myself. However what we have here is the worst of all outcomes.
Firstly, the pigs are still being raised and slaughtered, just not used for food. Not only that, but the demand for pork hasn't changed so someone else is now raising more for slaughter.
Secondly, we do have some of the better welfare standards, so offshoring meat production actively makes animal welfare worse.
If you want to actively help animals, demand needs to lead supply, not vice versa IE convince people not to eat meat and the farms will close organically.
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I think that’s what they’re doing by telling people to go vegan, as it’s a cruel industry. No vegans are celebrating this, it’s horrible for the pigs, but we cannot pretend that this wasn’t already happening to these pigs without the same public outcry
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If you want to advocate for vegetarianism / veganism, go right ahead
Except, please, not in this sub! Again, I eat about 80% vegetarian diet, I'm aligned with a lot of this, but the way that many vegans go about "persuading" people of their cause is deeply counter productive - and very much not UKPolitics.
Edit: vegans assemble !!
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I mean veganism in its modern form started as a social/political movement in the UK in 1944. It is fundamentally a part of UK politics and always will be. It's also entirely relevant to the discussion posted here, why should it have to be talked about somewhere else?
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I think it can be appropriate discussions in threads like these
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I'm aligned with a lot of this, but the way that many vegans go about "persuading" people of their cause is deeply counter productive - and very much not UKPolitics.
How would they do that? Vegans a lot of the time just communicate reality, so it is in fact reality that is to harsh?
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I eat about 80% vegetarian diet I'm aligned with a lot of this
Which parts are you aligned with and which parts aren’t you?
and very much not UKPolitics.
Veganism is a 20th century British political movement
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"Please talk about political issues, just not in a political sub when I don't like hearing about it."
This is a bit of a double-tounged attitude no matter what your thoughts are on veganism. It's like saying "please by all means advocate for it. Just don't talk about it".
What gives you the authority to tell people what they should and shouldn't be discussing?
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Outrage over a slight difference in time of performing the same disgusting abhorrent actions is ridiculous
Well the difference is the animal doesn't die in vain.
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Based
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Go vegan.
not everyone will. Hence this issue.
I worry this position is not far off talking about NHS problems with a pithy:
well people should take better care of themselves.
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Clearly we need a meat and animal product tax, and to transfer subsidies to plant-based foods. We need education on cooking with plants which is cheaper than cooking meat anyway.
But we also, now, need individuals who are aware of the problems to go vegan. Each year the number of vegans in the UK rises dramatically. So it's becoming a movement.
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I feel like counting the amount of meat consumed is probably a better statistic.
I think an easier "win" would be persuading people to eat less beef (taxation as you say can help here). This helps with climate change and also from that platform of making people think more about what they eat, it then becomes easier to transition people onto non-meat alternatives (which are considerably tastier than they once were) and lab grown meat in the long term for the rest.
I think the abstract of conversion while having some merit isn't realistic as a complete solution given human tendencies in diversity and counter-culture.
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If we're talking about animal cruelty and not just climate change, telling people to eat less beef without telling them to eat less meat (or even eggs) could do more harm than good. You'd have to kill over 300 chickens to replace the meat that a single cow provides for example.
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Sounds like a Brexit issue. The meat processors got addicted to cheap workers, and don’t pay enough to get workers domestically.
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Not only food processors, Britons got also used to buy cheap meat. There has always been quality meat on the shelves, it just doesn’t sell much.
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So is that Brexit causing a problem or solving one?
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Just like the HGV driver shortage, the country has not shifted to a higher wage, higher quality jobs model. With HGV drivers, they just used rhetoric and tried to get retired people to come back and work 50 hour weeks and shit in a paper bag at the side of the road like they used to, before even panicking to the point of mobilising the army.
For this brexit crisis, they've just come up with some wasteful time-buying solutions which don't appear to have worked alongside trying to get foreign workers back again with visas
It's a failure no matter which way you voted.
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Agreed but covid has changed the whole landscape. To view our world just through a Brexit lens is wrong.
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Idk has the problem been solved? They’re talking about temp visas instead of raising pay so I’d say probably not. Not to mention the flight of industry. Look at Honda closing Swindon and instead building the Civic hatch in Indiana.
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I'm sure these farmers are having a bad time, but I struggle to sympathise when they're profiting from the painful slaughter of one of the most intelligent animals on the planet. The same intelligence as a three year old.
It's an industry that deserves to crumble.
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I don't really get it either
In the video the vet talks about maybe having to abort pregnant pigs - and the way they talk about it is like it's an unthinkable thing to kill little baby pigs
In the same video the farmer talks about how she didn't become a farmer to kill animals. But.... she did. That's her job. She raises and then kills pigs so we can eat them!
Don't get me wrong - I'm literally eating sausages as I type so I'm not making some vegetarian point. But we kill these animals ALL THE TIME. We literally kill ALL OF THEM. You can't plausibly act like having to kill them slightly earlier or much earlier is some terrible thing that makes you want to cry
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It's not good to kill things for no reason though. I do think killing a pig to feed people is different than killing it for no reason.
Anyway as with a lot of problems, you read this and feel like there have to be practical solutions here so that this meat can be used to feed people........
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We have alternatives to eat, it’s not at all different unless you place preposterous value upon your taste pleasure.
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I guess it's a tragedy for the farmers, not the pigs. The pigs were going to die anyway...
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What this probably means is that even more pigs will die. Just not in this country.
Supermarkets will still seek to source pork, it just won’t be as easily available from British sources, which will mean added emissions and costs from a longer supply chain.
Yes, eating less or no meat is the long term solution, but right now this is an omnifuckup that simply pointing out that the pigs will be killed anyway isn’t really addressing the increased harm being caused.
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Sadly people voted for their own self interests and didn’t appreciate unintended consequences. To them they were voting to keep exports out, reasoning that their own prices would then go up. So more profit.
They didn’t appreciate that they’d be keeping cheap labour out (willing to work minimum wage as they had low outgoings and U.K. minimum wage is better than at home ) and that Tesco etc wasn’t going to suddenly change their models to accommodate for the farmers and butchers suddenly needing to find extra money to pay to train and retain people.
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Half of the UK population is below average intelligence.
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Sadly people voted for their own self interests
If only.
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I think they did, it's just they were lied to about the results of the vote, and it turns out we've all been fucked over, unless we have a few million in taxhavens, then it was worth it.
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The first six months of 2021 saw the pig industry record its worst financial performance on record, and in total farmers have already lost an estimated £160m.
£160m in 6 months is only £6million a week - small change compared to the extra £350m the NHS is getting every week.
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If only they had covered a bus in bacon, all of this could have been avoided
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Good. Let the industry die.
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Except this won’t be the cause of that happening.
You’re not wrong, but this fuckup will mean more animals being killed overall and more emissions as they are imported.
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Not to diminish the seriousness of this particular situation. Does everything have be a crisis? Couldn't it be a pig, predicament, pig problem, maybe pig pickle?
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I like the last one, a bit of a ‘pigle’
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Another thread for the non-vegans to pretend to be against animal cruelty.
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My issue here is that you don't have to be perfect to be better.
If the attitude is anyone not a vegan is worthless, you aren't going to generate the change required to move people towards your position.
Just as with the environment, I recycle, only use public transport in the main, I'm fairly poor, so don't consume as much as the average westerner, but I do have maybe a burger a week.
It's really not good tactics of persuasion to lump me in with Jeremy Clarkson.
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My issue is that people deem it acceptable to be animal abusers as long as it’s only a few times a week.
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and my view is that once a week is better than all the time.
Just as a cold is bad and yet cancer is worse.
I had a burger tonight and really enjoyed it, but I probably won't eat meat against for a few days at least.
Surely, it can be seen that I'm not equal to Bernard Matthews or the Burger King himself?
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“Surely, it can be seen that I’m not equal to Bernard Matthews or the Burger King himself”
“Surely it can be seen that I’m not a killer, but just the person who paid the hitman”
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Vegans aren't saying be perfect though, they're saying be vegan.
Its the best single thing an individual can do environmentally and for animal rights by the numbers, so if you care about the environment and animal cruelty you're vegan, if you aren't vegan you just say you care about these things.
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And that's where I disagree, I agree I clearly care LESS than a vegan, although some vegans just don't enjoy meat and don't necessarily give a damn about animals...
However, it's a bit much to put me in the same group as Ronald McDonald because I have one burger or one bacon sandwich a week.
This is where I fear you'll lose those who are doing some things right but can't give up meat completely.
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“….don’t necessarily give a damn about animals” you are 100% incorrect. Veganism is by definition about animal rights and reducing animal suffering.
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I truly don't believe we will lose anyone who was actually going to give up meat. No one who wants to stop eating animal products decides not to because someone said that veganism was the songle best thing you can do. I also don't agree with the word "can't" life is about choices and while absolutely some people can't give up meat (medical issues, diets specific to certain regions and cultures that don't have access to other options etc.). You said you can't give it up because you like having meat every week.
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If your trying or hoping to win the hearts and minds mate, you're doing it wrong.
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Aren't vegans eating agricultural products? Ever heard of pest control?
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Far more land and crops go into raising animals for slaughter than for just eating the crops themselves. If you cared about plants or pest control you’d be a vegan because it causes less harm in all scenarios.
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Least harm would be a single organic grass fed cow. One life, enough food for a year. You don't have to buy the cheapest grain fed meat you know.
Not to mention the fact that vegans have to eat the same calories and therefore eat more agricultural products so more animals die.
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You really don’t know anything about this subject do you?
Good luck living on one single cow for a year with no other food.
No, when calories are equated for vegans still cause less harm than non-vegans through their diets. Around 7.3 billion animals are killed in plant agriculture every year. At least 75 billion land animals are killed every year in animal agriculture. You tell me which of those numbers are bigger.
All of this is even before land use, deforestation, and emissions come in to the debate.
Edit: I’ve done my fair share of debating non-vegans and their idiotic takes in this sub before, and I’m not wasting any more time on it. If you want to argue, go to r / debateavegan
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The pigs are reportedly absolutely distraught at the thought they will not be processed into sausages, ham etc after they are killed, unlike their lucky predecessors last year. Huge tragedy
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Was this last years favoured thought experiment of what would happen if we all went vegan?
Now that their objection has been met, I trust all the Mail readers are going to stop eating pork and bacon. As I’m sure they were all arguing in good faith.
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As long as Peppa Pig is safe though BoJo wouldn't lose any sleep over this.
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Culling = killing.
Just to be clear.
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It all amounts to the largest culling of healthy pigs in the history of British farming.
I read this as a Brexit benefit. After all, who would not be glad to be part of a history-making event? /s
There are other forces that are compounding the problem, including a loss of exports to the Chinese market for some pig processors and disruption caused by the recent CO2 shortage.
Co2 shortage caused by Brexit. A loss of exports to the Chinese market.....because French and German (mostly German) producers picked up more export share.
Truly, Brexit is the gift that keeps on giving....for EU companies, of course.
The first six months of 2021 saw the pig industry record its worst financial performance on record, and in total farmers have already lost an estimated £160m.
Another brexit record.
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Karma is a beautiful thing.
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Of course, as is now standard post brexit practice (I think it is now codified in a statutory instrument), the farmer interviewed voted for brexit but "didn't vote for this", which is odd as I'm pretty sure I have a niggling memory that "everyone knew what they were voting for"
Seems she put a tick in the "more patriotism" box. I didn't have that on mine - must have been a misprint.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1507625/Brexit-news-pig-farmer-butcher-chaos-meat-supply-chain-labour-shortages-latest-radio-4-vn/amp
True patriots voted for Remain.
Vote for stupid undefined thing, win stupid undefined prize.
They got exactly what they voted for.
Ok, I voted remain myself, but frankly the implications of remain were not defined clearly either and had potentially unattractive components- like you were rubber stamping a united states of Europe (Cameron's concession notwithstanding) and an EU army. It is a fair point that the statists in the EU absolutely attempted to dissolve national identities into the EU- "less patriotism". The real problem is that more people didn't vote for May, because hers was the softest Brexit on offer that didn't come with a hard leftist as PM who couldn't even kneel before the queen- or that Corbyn wouldn't step aside to allow a coalition to be formed to have a labour pm to put a softer deal through. Honestly I'd put more blame on the irresponsible dipshits who voted for Corbyn to be labour leader for this stuff.
There wasn’t a chance in hell of a “United States of Europe” or an “EU Army” while we were in the union. It’s been 6 years since the vote and neither of those things are any more a reality now than they were then.
No. I voted remain on the basis (amongst other reasons) that we could disrupt these things more from the inside, but there was certainly always a chance for these things to happen given, especially if it came across that our "bluff had been called" and that we would never get another referendum because the last one was too close, like the Scots. Given the way things seem to go these days in politics, I think it could well have unfortunately gone that way and I don't assume I couldn't have been mistaken. Either way there was always more than a "chance in hell" and saying it could never happen like Clegg did plays/played into the hands of brexiteers.
That's not correct. The eurocorps has taken the following steps:
2016
Cooperation Agreement with European Union Military Staff
2016
Certification as EU Battle Group Force HQ
2017
Certification as EU Battle Group Force HQ
2018
Certification as NATO S Response Force
And the new government in Germany are now pushing precisely for a united states of Europe in concert with Macron.
No sunshine, I accept your vote, I don't have to respect it. I very much judge you by your vote, just like I'd judge you by any other behaviour.
Wants tighter border controls
Also wants emergency immigrant butcher visas
…
Can someone help me out and give me the 1 armed shrug dude?
Apart from the hilarious ‘I voted for people to become more patriotic’ bit, what really got me in the article is that they are now shifting the blame to vegetarians apparently. I’ll admit, I did not have that one on my Brexit Bullshit Bonanza Bingo Card. I went with the more traditional blame Europe/Remainers/Immigrants/Labour/French/Milliband/Scotland/Biden/Guardian/Brussels
Vegetarians. That’s quite the curve ball
I mean, what else could she possibly do? Hold herself accountable? Of course not. Had to be someone else's fault.
Am a out of touch? No its the vegetarians who are wrong.
She's succeeded in making me less patriotic. Why would I want to be associated with this bunch of losers?
I voted for people to be more patriotic... That basically reads like ... I voted coz there are too man brown people. Lol