16/12/21 30,000 pigs culled on farms, how to solve the labour problem, buffalo mozzarella

Farming Today

• Episode: 16/12/21 30,000 pigs culled on farms, how to solve the labour problem, buffalo mozzarella
• Website: Farming Today
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:13:30
• Published: 2021-12-16 07:00

The crisis in the pig industry: we discuss what the Government is and isn’t doing about it; and new recommendations on managing short term issues in the labour market. Only 50 butchers have applied for the 800 temporary visas the Government has made available under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme. These are aimed at alleviating problems in meat processing plants. Pig farmers say their sector is now 'on its knees' and they’ve lost hundreds of millions of pounds. The latest figure from the National Pig Association is that 30,000 healthy pigs have had to be culled as the shortage of butchers means they can’t be processed. The Migration Advisory Committee, an independent public body that advises the Government on migration issues, has now weighed in with its annual report released yesterday. It warns against using temporary visa schemes to solve longer term problems. All this week we're focusing on cheese. When it comes to mozzarella, although much of what you’ll find on UK supermarket shelves is made from cow’s milk, the traditional cheese is made from buffalo milk. There’re only a handful of buffalo mozzarella producers in the UK, one being the Buffalo Dairy in Wales. Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.