Review of The PigIdea

The day was filled with lunch time workers quizzically asking questions such as “what the hell we were doing in the middle of Trafalgar square giving away food?”. Fair question I reckon, but there was on the whole, a massively positive response to the Big idea that is the PigIdea. The winter sun mostly shone through too, and as a good Cumbrian, have to say it’s good to see the sun now and then, especially the winter sun.

As a Hambassador for The PigIdea and with a name like Farmer Sharp, I was contacted by BPEX’s PR company Wild card, who asked if we could meet at the Trafalgar square pig feast. 

Our conversation was a frank and open exchange on all the possible ramifications for the pig industry as a whole but maybe I’m guessing, with a focus on the bigger end of that industry. The conversation covered their worries that this Idea could be a threat in view of the alleged Heddon- on- the- Wall swill derived foot and mouth disaster. As a person who saw my cousin get all their livestock culled this is the last thing I would want to risk happening again. 

We all have a duty to look at the fact that approximately 15 million tons of food waste every year (a conservative estimate) is currently being thrown away, and even if we only got a few percent of this food waste into feeding pigs it will be a massive start. Not to rush at it like a bull at a gate but careful thoughtful resolution of the problems is required to make it as risk free as it can be.

There is also the farming conversation of yield and food conversion rates etc. I personally am not an advocate for feeding pigs on swill alone, but for feeding them a balanced diet with a percentage of swill which can mean that a good and not massively fat carcass will be produced. The nutritional  knowledge is already there to sort this issue out, and maybe with swill feeding there might also come an improvement of the pig producers margins, as they are generally slim at the moment. 

The other great asset to swill feeding is that quite often swill fed pigs reared in the right way can be massively better eating and that is a win win situation - in japan, swill fed pigs achieve quite a premium because of the better eating qualities such as fat marbling and more depth of flavour.

Ice

I really do love winter. It is to most people an anathema, but to me it brings only healthy brisk mornings through the open window in the bedroom.

A really hard winter kills bugs and insect pests, so from a farming point of view it’s good, but can also be a double edged sword as the livestock and particularly the hill and fell sheep can find it hard going. 

As a died- in- the- wool meat man, I have to say that stuff also keeps better......I remember my first employer (the old sexy Rexy) saying “by Gum its cold, but its grand keeping weather”.

The other morning as we sat having breakfast, discussing with the kids about the impending severe cold weather on its way, their only comment was “will there be snow? bring it on!”.  And of course, who can doubt the wonderful and warming feeling of those comfort foods we all crave when the temperature plummets.... the stews, the soups, the roasts, all the dishes that in the height of summer feel like too much too much effort to eat and certainly too much effort to cook.

Pig Swill

One of my youthful memories is of Mr. Mulgrew in his mazda pickup collecting the kitchen waste (or pig swill as it was known) from the local hostelries. Normal kitchen waste would be taken home to feed his omnivorous pigs, and this would make the pigs a little over fat but choc full of flavour (not dissimilar to the much vaunted rare breeds pork of today's Artisan butchers).  The first reason for not feeding the pigs of today entirely on swill is the modern requirement for uniformity of size and fat cover of the animal. It has been ascertained that the way to get more uniform carcasses is to spilt the feed into twenty percent cereal ration and eighty percent swill. There is also a concern for balancing the carbon footprint generated by cereal/ soya consumption, but the consensus is that there is no way to entirely cut out the soya consumption by pigs straight away.  The second reason, is the disastrous Heddon-on-the-wall foot and mouth outbreak.  This made legislators run scared from swill feeding, and an EU wide ban on swill feeding pigs very quickly followed.  It seemed at the onset of the ban that most people hadn't considered the crime of food waste to landfill as an issue .... This issue always has in my view, been one of the most important food and farming issues. Thankfully, it's also a view that many sections of the media now seem to be adopting.

Luing Cattle

Luing is a small island off the west coast of Scotland and the farmers there have a breed of cattle second to none. 

The Luing cattle are a small, just above belt buckle, high breed of cattle, and, a cross between the iconic Highland cattle and the beef short horn. Both these breeds of cattle individually produce magnificent beef but the crossbreed is better adapted to the windswept Isle of Luing. 

One of the advantages amongst many is its carcass size - if ewe like your sirloin steak rare (as ewe should) a thick Luing steak won't break the bank. In comparison, to get a thick rare steak out of commercial cattle like British blue it would have to be at least 450g (about a pound in weight). Do the math.

Watch out for Luing in proper shops will keep ewe informed.

Antibiotics resistance

There is an ongoing argument about the state of antibiotic resistant bacteria and as ever the overall picture is a complicated one. 

The worst kept secret in agriculture pharmaceuticals is that prophylactic antibiotics are widely used as a growth promoter and disease inhibitor mostly in pig and poultry production.

Consequently those antibiotics are passed on through the meat to us... not news to us insiders but it in my opinion this fact should be on banner disaster news headlines across the world! 

Can ewe imagine a scenario with your doctor saying “I am sorry that chest infection has no cure”? I can.

Even in the face of little hope, one major start would be to remove antibiotics from agriculture - a difficult thing to achieve, but not an impossible one. To start the change of antibiotic resistance, pork and poultry production would have to be more extensive. We would get lots of advantages from this, like better animal welfare and better quality of meat but it would cost more, so we’d eat less.... Eat less Eat better seems a win win to me.