Pigswill ban 'should be reassessed', scientists say
Feeding swill - or food waste - to pigs was banned in 2002 as there was evidence to suggest it was to blame for the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth.
A team of Cambridge scientists has said the EU ban on pig swill feeding should be reconsidered.
Feeding swill - or food waste - to pigs was banned in 2002 as there was evidence to suggest it was to blame for the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth.
But researchers from the University of Cambridge say that 1.8 million hectares of land could be saved by lifting the ban and creating pig feed using 'heat treated' food waste.
Heat treating techniques are used in East Asian countries such as Japan to recycle food waste as animal feed.
In a new study published in the journal Food Policy, the research team argue that lifting the ban would not only reduce the amount of land needed by the pork industry, but could also cut feed costs by 50 per cent and provide a use for over 100 million tonnes of food that is wasted in the EU every year.
Lead author Erasmus zu Ermgassen said: "It is time to reassess whether the EU’s blanket ban on the use of food waste as feed is the right thing for the pig industry."
Responding to the study, BVA's senior vice-president John Blackwell told MRCVSonline: "The cost and carbon footprint that would be made in sourcing, transporting and effectively heat treating pigswill for the five million production pigs in the UK would likely be phenomenal, and so could tip the balance against any potential gains this paper says could be made in tackling our food waste problem."
Mr Blackwell also raised concerns about the difficulty of enforcing a heat treating system to the extent that no traces of meat, including pork products, made their way into the feed.
"The commercial pig industry in the UK/EU strives to produce top quality products that are safe for consumers, and the variable nutritional quality of pigswill would not assist this," he said.
Prof zu Ermgassen also quotes concerning figures from a survey that found 25 per cent of smallholder farmers in the UK admit to illegally feeding uncooked food waste to their pigs. Mr Blackwell called the statistic "very worrying" and said this must be addressed.
"The fact they've managed to do this and get away with it so far is not a reason for reversing a well thought-through ban," he added.
Read the full study: Reducing the land use of EU pork production: where there’s swill, there’s a way - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919215001256
The BSAVA has opened submissions for the BSAVA Clinical Research Abstracts 2026.
