Every Country likes to honour its key industry personnel and the UK is no exception. The David Black Award was established by a farmer of the same name who farmed pigs and arable in south east England and whose farming enterprise is now run by his son. The award was first awarded in 1960 and is presented to the person who has made a valuable and sustained contribution to the British pig industry, with the first winner being Sir John Hammond, a pioneering and world famous animal scientist.
Many notable figures have won the award, amongst them Ken Wooley, the founder of PIC who received his award in 1976 and Mike Muirhead, the internationally renowned pig veterinarian (1980). The award is quite unique as the presentation place in the House of Lords, seat of the Upper House of the UK Parliament. First of all attendees are subjected to a rigorous security screening after which they pass through the historic passages and corridors of Parliament before congregating in the Cholmondeley Room, which directly overlooks the majestic river Thames.
This is where the award ceremony takes place after which attendees are treated to a “Full English”, a traditional English breakfast of Suffolk bacon, eggs and sausage, Lancashire black pudding, mushrooms and tomatoes, along with toast and marmalade, all English, of course !
The award was presented by Neil Parish MP, who is Chairman of the Government’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee (EFRA). Welcoming the invited politicians, members of the House of Lords and industry leaders, Mr. Parish pointedly commented, “We don’t want to export our industry with Brexit plus the fall in the value of Sterling means that EU labour (on which the UK pig industry is heavily reliant) gets less income due to the poorer exchange rate.”
The 2017 David Black award went to Charles ‘Charlie’ Allen, of Oxfordshire –based DC & RJ Allen & Partners. Receiving his award Charlie 
said “I’ve been in the industry all my life growing up looking after pigs and I’ve been at it ever since. It’s as simple as that, so to receive the award was a surprise and I never thought for a minute that I would get it.” Charlie started farming in 1971 with his father, brother and cousin with responsibility for 300 sows and has never looked back. Today the business has more than 5,000 sows on units in Oxfordshire and Dorset which Charlie still runs with his brother but now also his son and two nephews. Charlie was a founder member of the National Pig Association (NPA) Producer Group and he is chairman of Thames Valley Cambac which has grown to be the largest pig marketing operation in the UK. Charlie continued, “We’re a large farming business. My father and uncle started off with 250 acres and today we farm in the region of 7000 acres. The business has been successful over the years, through hard work and a bit of luck. The key to that success is however, team work and the strength of our team which has stood with us in good stead over the years. Generally we’ve always been very proactive farmers, working with processors, understanding customers and supplying what they want. I’ve always realised that you can’t stand still though. We’ve upgraded buildings and utilised the latest technology to ensure that we’re in a position where we are operating as up to date as we can be. There have also been tremendous advances in pig genetics and pig health. The industry has totally changed. The biggest challenge was brought about by the sow stall ban (in 1999) where we virtually lost half of our industry. We need to make sure that we don’t lose the other half as we go through Brexit and look to open new markets. Whilst the industry is becoming more specialised we should ensure we put ourselves in the strongest position possible to compete in the global market. Going forwards, the important thing is that whatever we do, we need to do it well”.
Mike Sheldon is the NPA Chairman and he closed the award ceremony with a short speech. Sheldon commented on the recently launched UK industry on-farm training initiative which recognises the skills set of our UK industry employees. He strongly emphasised that “UK pig industry employees are not unskilled.” (This remark was made to remind our Brexit negotiators that industry employees are highly skilled and hence should be allowed to work in the UK post Brexit). Sheldon closed by commenting on the growing exports of UK pig products, remarking that “Pork exports are now worth more than the value of Scotch whisky exports to China.”
Charlie Allen is obviously concerned about Brexit but made the point that his business is investing to keep as up to date as possible and keep performance at an optimum level. A national survey a few years ago found that there was a lack of investment in new buildings as many UK pig producers lacked confidence in the future of the UK pig industry. Well, surely in pig production you have to make a commitment- you can’t just sit on the fence. The UK has enjoyed buoyant finisher pig prices for the last 15 months so prudent producers should be investing in new buildings and keep up to date, so that they can cope with life post Brexit. It’s gratifying to know that’s the case. A.M.Warkup is a leading E.Yorkshire based buildings manufacturer and they are extremely busy through into 2018. “Many farmers are replacing straw based systems with slatted floored buildings, for both breeding stock, rearing pigs and finishers. In fact we are so busy that we are now even selling buildings in kit form, for farmers to erect themselves,” commented CEO Allan Mason.
Recent surveys have shown that UK producers are lagging behind their EU competitors in terms of productivity. One very worrying aspect is that the UK is two pigs born alive per litter down versus the EU. Having good litters is one of the most basic aspects of pig production. Surely service management / heat detection are standard procedures plus semen quality should not be a problem. The UK has always prided itself on the quality of its breeding stock so why we should be lagging behind in litter size is a bit baffling.
Charlie Allen obviously thinks that Brexit will not be good for the UK industry. Every day we read differing views in the media. Some say Brexit will be bad, some say the opposite. Certainly the UK is protected as a member of the EU with tariff barriers on imports and if the UK has to trade under WTO rules things could be a lot different as the UK could be faced with cheap imports from, for example, the USA and Brazil. Over the years the UK has promoted high welfare production – loose housing of gestating sows and using large amounts of straw for example. Straw is expensive and the systems are labour intensive. Seemingly under WTO rules welfare cannot be used to block imports, in other words imports from countries still using gestation stalls could not be banned. The UK has developed substantial exports to China and it’s to be hoped that post Brexit that this very valuable business will continue. Immigration was a key issue in the Brexit vote, even if that’s denied in some quarters. It seems that many of the older generation voted out, whereas the younger generation voted to remain. Of course retired folk don’t have businesses to run and I suspect many didn’t realise how reliant the British economy is on immigrant labour. Many might argue that immigrants take jobs away from Brits but the hard fact is that immigrants have a better work ethic plus many Brits turn their noses up at having to work in menial occupations.
Many UK pig businesses say they can’t exist without EU labour and it’s to be hoped that our lead bodies will make our politicians realise that pig industry employees are highly skilled, not simply “labourers” and that they will still be allowed into the UK to work. Twenty years ago you could reckon on being able to attend a pig conference every month, over the winter. Nowadays we have maybe just one or two, in sharp contrast to the number of events put on in Canada. We had a major two day conference held in the Midlands in July which had international speakers and which was very well attended. Attendees commented what a great event it was, to get updated, to network and socialise. Hopefully it will be repeated next year. One of the sponsors was the industry lead body AHDBPork (Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board) and I put it to the Board’s executives that AHBDPork, as the industry lead body, should be doing more in terms of conferences to keep producers updated. Pig production can be a lonely job and conferences also give producers chance to meet up to discuss problems and be comforted that the problems they have are common to many others. The feedback I got from AHDBPork was quite frankly, very disappointing. I was told that AHDBPork has an excellent website for keeping up to date – which it has. However, being on a computer is not a communal activity plus with an ageing industry how many 60 year old producers like navigating around complicated websites after a hard day’s physical graft?
The UK breeding herd has sadly halved in the last 20 years but has now stabilized at 400,000 females. What will happen post Brexit is anyone’s guess, but let’s hope the breeding herd doesn’t reduce further as an industry needs a reasonable number of females to remain commercially viable and not implode. •
— By Norman Crabtree
