PIG farmers and exporters are being urged to stop selling sows to the Continent to be reared under conditions which are banned in Britain.

The call has come from the pressure group Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), which today issued a film expos to coincide with a conference on the future of the UK pig industry.

Most breeding sows exported from the UK are shipped from Dover or Hull to Zeebrugge.

The CIWF film shows how its investigators trailed UK sows being taken to a number of Belgian farms which use sow stalls.

Peter Stevenson, political and legal director of CIWF, said 180,000 breeding sows were exported from Britain last year.

He said many of them were destined to be reared in sow stalls - illegal in Britain since January 1 (99).

Mr Stevenson said the metal-barred stalls were so narrow that sows could not turn round during their 161/2-week pregnancies. "In other words, she is imprisoned in this way for most of her adult life."

He said British pig farmers had been complaining since the sow stall ban came into force that they were being undercut by imported pig meat.

"It is hypocritical for UK pig farmers to complain about continental sow stalls while at the same time exporting their sows for rearing in such farms," Mr Stevenson claimed.

Digby Scott, spokesman for the British Pig Industry Support Group, said: "We are heartily pig-sick that CIWF should choose to raise this issue.

"We can accept that we are responsible for pig welfare in Britain, but they want us to be the conscience of the whole damn world."

He stressed that exporting breeding stock was a legitimate trade, and added: "The quickest way to get sows out of stalls in Europe is for every shopper in Britain to buy only British bacon, ham and pork."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.