Pig farmers across Scotland are suffering sleepless nights as they endure a perfect storm in the sector.

Covid pig processing backlogs, African Swine Fever on the Continent, and the collapse of the Chinese market all seriously disrupted the pigmeat market in 2021, but 2022 has added to the agony with rocketing costs for feed and fertiliser, wiping out financial reserves as farmers attempt to keep their businesses afloat.

“This is the first time in 35 years I have been having sleepless night about the farm,” said pig farmer Danny Skinner, of Lazyfold, near Insch. “We are having to borrow extra money to pay record prices for the cereals to feed pigs this year.

"We would normally grow enough ourself but a poor harvest last year means we are in the market for grain. It was costing £165/t for feed barley at harvest last year and now it is costing us £280/t today. And worse than that we are struggling to get hold of it. On top of this, soya has jumped from £440/t to £540/t since Russia invaded Ukraine.”

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Mr Skinner is 50% short of feed for his 440 sows and follower pigs until harvest. He needs 50 tonnes of feed per week, but has only managed to secure enough for 25 tonnes a week. In a fortnight, he will need to go out and get more on the market.

Unfortunately, rising prices this spring have caused many arable farmers to sit on stocks in hope of bumper pay days. Danny is now pleading for some collaboration to ensure pig farmers are able to secure adequate feed supply to keep their industry running.

“We have worked with cereal growers for years in Aberdeenshire,” he said. “But if pig farmers go to the wall then there won't be the local demand for feed cereals in the area.” Three quarters of the grain fed to pigs is bought by farmers from neighbouring cereal growers.

Until recently, Danny was getting only £1.09/kg for his pigs, which he said was below the cost of production and has wiped out £300,000 of cash reserves in the business. Hope is on the horizon with an increase of 30p/kg coming from April 6, bringing the price to £1.39/kg. However that record price rise is still well below the £2/kg which Danny believes pig farmers need to break even. With 70% of a pig farmers' costs coming from feed, it is easy to understand the demand for a sharp rise in the price they receive for pigmeat.

This spring's cost crisis builds on a torrid 2021 where a backlog of pigs on farm threatened to cause national culls to rectify the imbalance. At Danny’s farm he is a fortnight behind where he should be on his pig kill. That backlog of pigs have needed 300t more feed to keep them going this last year.

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Pigs are regularly achieving conversion rates of 2.4kg of feed to 1kg of liveweight gain, so if they cannot get away to slaughter on time then they will go overweight. This results in farmers facing penalties for not hitting market spec. Pigs are being sold at 116kg which is well above the market spec of 95kg demanded of retailers and processors.

Cull sows have risen in price from last year’s low of £6/head where they were practically being given away from farms. Today they are closer to £60/head, but still well short of the price 16 months ago at £140/head, which is close to the cost of a replacement gilt which is £140 to £160/head.

Andy McGowan of Scottish Pig Producers said: “We need record prices to pull the industry out of the crisis. Seven years ago we had a price of £1.72/kg but we need to go above £2/kg or farmers will go to the wall. We were feeling confident as supply was starting to tighten this year and prices were coming up, but the cost of feed and inputs has wiped out any chance of a profit at current prices.”