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.
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.
Abattoirs, butchers and meat processors are set to employ prisoners and ex-inmates to help plug labour shortages.
Recruitment gap hitting hotels and restaurants as well as transport, CBI says.
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.
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 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.
‘Don’t let Brexit obliterate us’: Pig farmers protest at Tory conference amid cull warning
04/10/2021
Farmers dressed in pig costumes have protested outside the Conservative Party conference amid warnings that more than 100,000 pigs could be culled.
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.
Government ‘are standing by and watching this happen’, a leading supplier said.
'Grown men in tears': Hundreds of pigs culled with farms overcrowded amid butcher shortage
05/10/2021
"These are animals that they have reared, fed, looked after, cared for. To actually then kill something that's perfectly healthy to then go in the bin - it's just criminal," the head of the National Pig Association told Sky News.
Vets working to tackle pigs’ overcrowding in farms have said Prime Minister Boris Johnson is not taking the abattoir labour shortage seriously, and soon ‘mass culling’ would be the only option left to farmers.
In the latest reversal of post-Brexit immigration policy, the UK government is to offer 800 temporary visas to foreign butchers in a bid to counter a spiralling crisis on pig farms.
Many Brits will be forced to go without a Christmas turkey this year because of Brexit labour shortages, MPs were told this afternoon.
Great Britain’s beef producers export to Ireland before reimporting, while pork processors consider the Netherlands.
British cattle farmers are sending supplies to Ireland to be carved into cuts, according to the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA), before being brought back to the UK for consumption.
Staff shortages see carcasses exported for processing and then reimported.
Every farmers' worst nightmare is coming to pass; the mass culling of healthy animals because there simply aren't enough butchers to process them and get them off farms... So how did we get here?
Senior Tory MP warns Brexit ‘destroying’ British agriculture and condemns government failure to act
14/12/2021
Minister under fire for rejecting moves to bring in EU farm workers – as vegetable planting plunges 25%.
Senior Tory MP warns Brexit ‘destroying’ British agriculture and condemns government failure to act
15/12/2021
A furious Neil Parish laid into Kevin Foster, the immigration minister, for ignoring a recommendation to make it easier to bring in EU butchers and other workers – leading to a huge shortage.
The Yorkshire farmers who say they face a 'living hell' with Covid and Brexit perfect storm
09/01/2022
Thousands of pig farmers say they are in ‘a living hell’ as a perfect storm of supply chain delays caused by COVID and a shortage of butchers has pushing their industry to the edge.
The National Pig Association is calling for urgent action ahead of an emergency summit with the Government.
Pig farmers are in a “desperate” position – with culls of thousands of healthy animals and producers quitting the industry, they warned as a summit was held on the crisis.
Pig farmers are in a “desperate” position – with culls of thousands of healthy animals and producers quitting the industry, they warned as a summit was held on the crisis.