The National Pig Association (NPA) has issued strong warnings to producers after a farmer from Halifax was fined £4,000 for feeding his pigs meat sandwiches.
Simon John Tallis, 47, of Newlands Road, Warley, Halifax, pleaded guilty to two offences relating to breaches of legislation introduced to cut the risk of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) affecting UK livestock.
Tallis appeared before Bradford and Keighley Magistrates Court on 14th July and was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay a further £2,000 in costs.
The case was opened after members of Calderdale Council and West Yorkshire Trading Standards found a large amount of sandwiches containing meat substances on the site, along with equipment to feed the sandwiches to the animals.
Tallis, who is not an NPA member, confirmed at the Magistrates Court that he had indeed been feeding the sandwiches to pigs on the farm.
It is illegal to feed meat, meat products, catering waste and kitchen scraps to farmed animals, a regulation introduced after the 2001 FMD outbreak was officially blamed on the feeding of swill on a Northumberland pig farm.
The 2000 Classical Swine Fever (CSF) outbreak was also thought to have been caused by a pig eating a ham sandwich dropped into a field.
Barry Collins, Calderdale Council’s cabinet member for Regeneration and Economic Development, commented: “The sentence passed to Mr Tallis reflects the seriousness of the lack of care shown to his animals. Our Animal Health and Welfare Officer works hard with local farmers to ensure that this kind of incident rarely happens in our area.
“We urge local people to follow the legislation to help prevent potentially devastating animal diseases from being introduced and spread.”
NPA senior policy advisor Georgina Crayford said: “This could have been a disaster for the UK pig sector and the wider farming industry. If just one pig becomes infected with ASF, FMD, CSF or any other diseases potentially spread via infected meat, it could effectively close down our industry, stop our burgeoning export market in its tracks and cause untold damage to the wider farming community.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
