蜜芽传媒

Farmers' groups in the UK are warning that around 100,000 healthy pigs may have to be killed and incinerated in a matter of days, because abattoirs don't have enough staff to slaughter them and prepare the pork for market.

It comes after the government issued temporary visas for lorry drivers and poultry workers - but said it wouldn't do the same for other industries, despite widespread complaints about supply chain and staffing issues.

Karen Thompson is a pig farmer from South Yorkshire in the north of England. She says the situation is 'financially and emotionally devastating' because she is a farmer who cares about her animals and 'not a slaughterman'. She says the irony is this will lead to more imports and people eating meat produced in a less humane way.

"We are only 40% self sufficient in producing our own high quality pork in this country and so what will happen is we will be culling and binning all of this pork that we rear to these standards while the supermarket shelves are stocked with foreign pork which is brought in under poor standards."

(Photo: Stock photo of a pig. Credit: Science Photo Library)

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