The RSPCA is urging the government to take 'immediate action' to solve the pig industry's crisis and stop the emergency culling of healthy animals.
The animal welfare charity, which has a farm assurance scheme with 4,000 members, said the crisis was bigger than an 'on farm problem' for the industry to solve.
Tens of thousands of pigs may have to be culled due to slaughterhouse and butchery worker shortages linked to Brexit and the pandemic.
Producers have been warning for several weeks that the labour crisis has led to a backlog of as many as 120,000 pigs on farm.
About 600 pigs have been killed at farms across the country already, according to a report by The Guardian.
Zoe Davies, the chief executive of the National Pigs Association (NPA), told the paper that culling had begun at a 'handful' of farms.
She said: “We have moved to stage two. Stage one was contingency planning and putting pigs in temporary accommodation.
"Stage two, we have not got any more space and pigs are growing, there are more on farm that we can manage."
The RSPCA urged the government on Wednesday (6 October) to "step in now and fix it, as they did for the fuel crisis".
The charity said urgent action was needed now as farms across the country would be quickly running out of space for the pigs.
Emma Slawinski, director of policy said: “I’ve heard people say, what does it matter where they are killed? They are going to die anyway. But on-farm culls will be traumatic for many animals and people alike.
“Slaughterhouses are specifically designed to kill animals. Shooting thousands of healthy pigs on a farm will be extremely difficult, even for a skilled expert.
"Pigs are intelligent animals, they are big and strong animals, weighing as much as an adult man, and getting a clean shot will be difficult, even for a skilled expert.
"Farmers will do their best but it will be incredibly distressing for the pigs being separated at slaughter.
“None of this meat will be able to enter the food chain, which is incredibly wasteful and disrespectful.”
Alongside the immediate welfare risks, there is also the risk that retailers will start looking to import cheaper pork to meet demand.
These products may have been produced to lower welfare standards than the UK’s, compounding the welfare impact.
The NPA had sent a letter to retailers highlighting the issue that these imports were having on the labour shortage in processing plants.
It comes as pig producers staged a protest outside the Conservative Party Conference on Monday (4 October) to raise awareness of the sector's struggles.
NFU President Minette Batters told BBC Radio 4 Today programme that the protesting farmers were 'angry, distraught and extremely upset'.
"They have been calling for this, we have been calling for an emergency scheme, a Covid recovery scheme, to be put in place to avoid this very scenario," she added.
"I am desperate to get the facts of this story to the Prime Minister and that is what the pig farmers outside want to get across, the story of this disaster."
