The NPA has issued a formal complaint to the BBC about a clip from the BBC Radio 4 Podcast, Radical with Amol Rajan, which includes the claim that ‘100,000 pigs isn’t a big pig farm anymore’.
The claim was made on the podcast, hosted by BBC Radio 4 Today presenter Amol Rajan, by well-known farmer and author James Rebanks. He said: “There are something like four or five pig farms in Britain that produce 90% of our stuff, so 100,000 pigs isn’t a big pig farm anymore. It doesn’t get you in that top five. This is what is happening to our food system.”
Questioned further by Amol Rajan, Mr Rebanks said ‘you are not in the game’ unless you have 100,000 pigs as ‘you can’t buy food as cheap, you can’t run wagons as cheap’. He added: “This is a huge industrial enterprise.”
After being contacted by pig farming representatives pointing out the factual errors in what he said, Mr Rebanks has acknowledged his mistake, insisting he ‘wasn’t trying to denigrate pig farmers’.
He said was ‘trying to make the points that 1) that pig and chicken farms tend to scale up and without regulation do to an often staggering scale, and 2) that can/does lead to over-concentration of nutrients – which inevitably becomes a diffuse pollution issue’.
“I stand by both points,” he said. “But I said ‘farms’ and I meant ‘producer/processors’ the vague terms they use. I’m sorry. There was no intention to mislead.”
The BBC clip, which has been viewed thousands of times, can still be found on the Radio 4 Today Programme X feed.Â
NPA complaint
The NPA has written to the BBC on behalf of members ‘to highlight the inaccurate information that it portrays and to register our formal complaint’.
NPA head of public affairs Tom Haynes said: “It is simply erroneous to suggest there are any farms in the UK anywhere close to having 100,000s of pigs on them. During the interview James Rebanks wrongly conflates pig ownership and the size of pig farms/holdings.
“According to the most recently available government data, the average size of a UK pig farm/holding is 476. Even once you remove holdings of less than 10 pigs, it is still 938. In terms of female breeding herds specifically, the average size is 71 sows or 154 sows, once you have removed holdings of less than 5 pigs.
“As part of our complaint we also stressed that the pig and poultry sectors are both highly regulated sectors and it is therefore irresponsible to suggest there aren’t any regulations in place to govern these farms. Indeed, in England those farms with 2,000 places for production pigs (over 30kg) or 750 places for sows must have an environmental permit, enforced by the Environment Agency and comply with more stringent regulation. At present, this is unique for the pig and poultry sectors.”
He said BBC Radio 4’s decision to clip and promote this section of the podcast is an ‘active choice and has further spread this inaccurate information’, noting that across its various social media accounts the clip has had 100,000s of views.
“Given the misinformation this clip continues to spread, we have asked that the BBC to remove the clip and issue a correction,” he said.