Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), Pippa Hackett updated the Seanad last week regarding pig welfare inspections and commercial pig farms in Ireland. This was during a Green Party motion on animal welfare.
The minister commented that the DAFM had implemented several specific actions over the last two years to progress full implementation of the pig welfare directive. “Since 2020, the DAFM has been running a programme of pig welfare inspections aimed at identifying the risk factors for tail biting, giving pig farmers the opportunity to address them, and then monitoring progress towards rearing pigs with intact tails. To date, 138 commercial pig farms have been inspected and are engaging with the programme,” she said.
The Minister said that this number is likely to increase in the near future as active participation in the programme is one of the eligibility criteria for farmers availing of the recently announced Pig Exceptional Payment Scheme 2. A €13 million fund is being made available for the voluntary demand-led scheme for pig farmers who commit to meeting certain conditions.
The DAFM has also collaborated with Animal Health Ireland and Teagasc to deliver a free tail-biting risk-assessment tool for pig farmers.
Earlier this year, a new targeted agricultural modernisation scheme for pig farmers was also launched. The scheme offers farmers 40% co-funding up to the maximum investment ceiling of €200,000 towards new infrastructure for pig housing.