Pig & Poultry Sector Outlook

The biennial Pig & Poultry Fair, held this year at Birmingham NEC, was a showcase of innovation despite the challenges that continue to face the sectors.

The key themes of the show, summarised succinctly by Philip Gready of The Royal Agricultural Society of England, were “innovation, collaboration and sustainability” and the outlook for the future was positive on the whole with the egg industry facing the largest area of growth in recent months.

Food Security

Food security has been a hot topic over the last few years, it being something that the United Kingdom has been traditionally very proud of. However, there are numerous challenges facing our nation’s food security such as supermarket’s desire to beat each other on price, changing climates affecting the ability for food to be produced consistently as well as diseases such as avian influenza and swine fever.

For the pig and poultry sectors, an emphasis on improved animal health and welfare is being promoted. The idea being that improved health and welfare will also increase a farmer’s returns.

In the poultry sector, new Laying Hen Housing for Health and Welfare grants have been recently unveiled by DEFRA. This grant which will open for application at the end of June 2024 is available to commercial producers who have more than 1,000 birds and the grant can be applied towards building a new veranda or updating housing stock (so refurbishing or replacing existing).

There are other conditions, such as the buildings being located in England and the lengthy of tenancy so the conditions need to be carefully considered.

In the pig sector, the mood seemed to suggest that the sector was starting to recover after some difficult years. However, potential changes to adaptive farrowing are being discussed and a report carried out by John Mackinnon (and commissioned by the National Pig Association) into adaptive farrowing systems was unveiled at the Pig & Poultry show. Adaptive farrowing would require more space and more sheds would likely need to be built. There is of course a cost implication for producers and difficulties in obtaining the relevant planning for such changes. Future grants would I am sure be welcomed in this sector also!

These challenges often seem contradictory and the increase in drive for welfare competes with the price driven attitudes of many retailers. Climate change policies also pull in another direction.

Biosecurity

Both the pig and poultry sectors face challenges in relation to preventing diseases such as salmonella, avian influenza and swine fever.

While there have not yet been any swine fever cases in the UK and the last recorded avian influenza case being reported in March 2024, the sectors are not complacent. This time seems to be being used to step up biosecurity to ensure that such cases are kept to a minimum, this was reflected in the number of exhibitors featuring biosecurity measures.

Innovative ways of increasing biosecurity, such as automatic vehicle disinfectant systems at entry and exit points are growing in popularity.

Climate Change

Climate driven policies are ever present and are having a knock-on effect on margins.

The changes towards sustainable soya have been created by EU and UK legislation which will regulate deforestation. The UK Soy Manifesto has also been created by industry and has been signed by numerous retailers with the aim of sourcing more sustainable soya. The timings for the introduction of such legislation (2025) are causing some uncertainty.

This uncertainty has had a knock-on effect for the purchase of soya in 2025 as producers that purchase on futures are having to pay above the odds to secure soya for 2025.

The pig sector has reduced its use of soya significantly, but soya does still remain a crucial source of protein for the industry.

Innovation

This year’s pig & poultry fair had an Innovation Theatre to showcase the latest innovations in the sectors which can help with a number of the key concerns of the industry, such as preventing disease and enhancing biosecurity. Real-time monitoring of animals, listening systems to detect disease and emergency response biosecurity systems were showcased.

Looking to the Future

The pig & poultry fair also placed great emphasis this year on reaching future audiences both in terms of consumers and also for recruitment.

There has been an emphasis on educating younger children, delivering farm visits where able and getting the word out in relation to the nutritional benefits and the things that farmers are doing to mitigate sustainability concerns. Social media has in particular played an important role in spreading a positive farming message to younger generations.

How can we help?

We have a full service agricultural team, with specialists in planning, commercial property, banking, commercial law and more. We appreciate the challenges that these sectors face, so whether you need assistance with planning for a new shed, an increased overdraft to cover uncertainty in feed costs or the purchase of additional land to develop your business please do not hesitate to contact us.