A VEGETARIAN campaigning group have written to a local school offering a different perspective on pig farming, after pupils petted free range piglets.
In January Brightwalton Primary School children were treated to a bacon sandwich after petting piglets from a farm in Beedon.
The event was organised as part of the annual Farmhouse Breakfast week campaign to promote the importance of starting the day with breakfast and to celebrate regional produce.
But Europe's largest vegetarian campaigning group, Viva!, said that introducing the children to free-range piglets did not represent the truth about the meat they eat at home.
Campaign manager, Justin Kerswell, said: “In this country, 70 per cent of sows give birth in horrific farrowing crates. Sows are shut into these tiny cages a week before they give birth – and remain imprisoned until their piglets are three to four weeks old. Then most piglets are moved indoors.”
The organisation said the meat-based breakfast on white bread was not the healthiest option and it was unlikely that bacon, especially if purchased from a supermarket, would come from pigs raised on a free range farm.
Royal Berkshire Pork owner, Russell Kilvington, who brought the piglets and bacon to the school, said: “I agree that a lot of animals are caged up and I do not agree with it, which is why we are an out door free range farm.
“We did not say only eat bacon for breakfast."
Mr Kilvington said they discussed wheat and oat production, milling cereals for flour, and grain farming at the school’s morning assembly.
He said the bacon, served on a wholemeal bread roll, was an excellent source of protein and vitamin B1 Thiamin, vitamin B12, zinc and selenium which is important for vitality and the immune system.
He said that between 1978 and 1996 the fat in back bacon had reduced by 60 per cent according to the British Pig Executive, BPEX.