Co-operation is something that doesn't sit comfortably with many British producers. Looking across to the Continent, the Danes, Dutch and French have a long history of being part of co-ops, and certainly many small French family farms would be out ofbusiness had they not belonged to a large and, importantiy, powerful co-op.Over the years, the number of slaughter outlets for pigs has declined significantly, with fewer and larger players taking control. Pig units have grown much larger with time, but even so a group of farmers with, say, 60,000 slaughter pigs has considerably more clout than an individual producer with just 6,000. It was with this in mind that Scotlean Pigs was formed in 1980 as a pig-marketing co-op, in a move aimed at combatting the decreasing number of Scottish processors, which was leading to a buyers'market.
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