§ Mr. Hastingsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what was the value of production of all forms of pigmeat during the last 12 months in the United Kingdom;
(2) what is the total turnover of the pig industry plus auxiliary industries during the last year.
§ Mr. StrangI regret that information is not available in precisely the form requested. The farm gate value of pig-meat production expected during the farm year ended May 1977 as published in the White Paper "Annual Review of Agriculture 1977" (Cmnd. 6703) is £596 million. A significant proportion of processed pigmeat production is carried out by retail butchers and no precise information of the total value of retail sales 375W of fresh meat and meat products is available. Some information is, however, available on the sales value of industrial-scale manufacture of pigmeat products and this is published in the "Business Monitor" (No. PQ 214), the latest of which covers sales up to the third quarter of 1976. I am sending the hon. Member a copy, and copies are available in the Statistical Section of the Library of the House.
§ Mr. Hastingsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if the British pig industry ceased production, what would be the cost of importing the equivalent quantity of pigmeat from abroad.
§ Mr. StrangUnited Kingdom production of pigmeat was 872,000 tonnes in 1976–77. It is neither reasonable to assume that the British pig industry will cease production nor possible to make any meaningful estimate of the cost of replacing this volume of supply by imports even if supplies were available on this scale.