Government ‘are standing by and watching this happen’, a leading supplier said.

A pig farmer from Suffolk is set to quit his profession after more than two decades, saying that the shortage of butchers which may lead to a mass cull of pigs is the final straw.

Farmers dressed in pig costumes have protested outside the Conservative Party conference amid warnings that more than 100,000 pigs could be culled.

The British meat industry is warning that hundreds of thousands of pigs may have to be culled within weeks unless the government issues more visas to allow slaughterers into the country.

Leading figures in the livestock industry say that the animals face being killed and burned because Priti Patel has failed to include the butchers on a list of shortage occupations.

The National Pig Association has said that healthy animals are being destroyed following the exodus of EU workers as there are not enough people employed in slaughterhouses.

Recruitment gap hitting hotels and restaurants as well as transport, CBI says.

Abattoirs, butchers and meat processors are set to employ prisoners and ex-inmates to help plug labour shortages.

The BMPA claims the UK Government has made it “doubly difficult” to recruit new butchers as a result of Brexit and a lack of funding for education courses.

Butchers, bricklayers and welders are in such short supply that UK employers should be able to recruit them from abroad when EU freedom of movement rules end, government advisers say.