The Confidential Reporting Service launched by the National Pig Association (NPA) is primarily designed to protect pigs and not for use in reporting on standard farm practice.
This was the core message delivered by NPA chief executive, Dr Zoe Davies, during an interview for BBC’s Farming Today programme.
Quizzed on the role of tail-docking and farrowing crates, in relation to the new service, Dr Davies said the aim was to look at where things might be going wrong on a farm, not for reporting on standard farm practice.
“The service is primarily to protect the pigs,” she continued, adding that it was also designed to give farmers and managers peace of mind that staff and visitors are acting in a professional manner.”
Farming Today also spoke to south-west producer, Andrew Freemantle, who has already joined the new service.
After talking about his 20-year commitment to checking his pigs twice a day for anything that might indicate a problem, he said that he’d signed up to the new service to give his staff the ability, if they saw a welfare issue that wasn’t being addressed, to use the hotline to report it confidentially and without jeopardising their job.