We need happy pigs

To The Times

Further to your report, “Idyllic meat wrappers hide harsh reality of modern mass farming”: I am a pig farmer raising traditional breeds outdoors in the Taw Valley in north Devon.

The system is labourintensive and expensive, but produces pigs that grow slowly, behave naturally and are clearly content. However, they lay down more fat, which improves flavour, but is not wanted by commercial butchers and supermarkets, who have trained consumers to accept only a thin veneer of fat on their pork, a situation unique to the UK. Instead, consumers are supplied with cheap, tasteless meat that has lived, at best, a short life, devoid of stimulation, fresh air and even bedding.

Until consumers understand the torture that is inherent in the production of the cheap meat sold to them, producers will be prepared to carry on. Alan Pateman-jones, Umberleigh, Devon