Anti-waste campaigners at the Pig Idea campaign have responded to criticism from the pig industry, which has dismissed them as being "well-intentioned" but fundamentally ignorant, and their "superficially attractive" ideas as potentially dangerous.

Since its launch in the summer, the National Pig Association and levy-funded body BPEX have sought to undermine the campaign, which aims to increase the amount of food waste given to pigs, reversing EU restrictions on feeding 'swill' in the process. The initiative has the backing of a number of welfare and environment groups, as well as celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

NPA and BPEX believe that the campaigners' calls could potentially lead to a repeat of the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic, which was caused by feeding inadequately treated catering waste to pigs. The outbreak was only brought under control after nine months and the deaths of ten million pigs, sheep and cattle, costing the industry an estimated £8 billion.

However, supporters of the Pig Idea maintain that, so long as waste is properly treated, feeding certain waste foods to pigs could massively reduce the environmental impact of the food industry and reduce the amount of edible grains fed to farm animals. They argue that crops used to feed animals would be better used to feed hungry people.

On Thursday, the Pig Idea issued its response to industry criticism, claiming that "there is more common ground between The Pig Idea, the NPA and BPEX than might be supposed." The group cited an NPA position paper on feeding food waste to pigs from November 2013, and said that the two sides of the supposed debate are, in fact, both calling for "a well-regulated, well-monitored system of recycling plants that can convert food waste – including catering waste and other types of food waste not currently permitted by law – safely into livestock feed."

The campaign group said it agreed with NPA that such facilities do not yet exist, but that research into increasing the recycling of waste is essential to cut food waste and the environmental and social impacts of livestock agriculture. They pointed to a government-commissioned report by FERA, published earlier this year, which identified that more work needs to be done to establish how such a system would operate and the environmental benefits it would provide.

Campaigners also claimed that heat treating food from appropriate sources (not, as had been suggested by industry groups, household waste), would eliminate the risk of spreading diseases such as African Swine Fever or Foot and Mouth. They said evidence from Japan, where the practice is already in use, supports their claims. Nevertheless, NPA has warned that the Pig Idea message risks confusing hobby keepers, who could be led to believe that feeding waste to pigs is acceptable when in reality it remains illegal and could lead to the spread of disease.

However, NPA has backed moves to reintroduce Meat and Bone Meal (MBM), which, it claims, could alleviate Europe's 'protein deficit'. Reintroducing MBM, now called processed animal protein, has been discussed at the European level. The practice of feeding animals on waste from others of the same species was outlawed in 2001 after it was linked to the BSE crisis. EU health watchdog EFSA has suggested that 'intra-species' feeding for fish, poultry and pigs could be safe, but questioned its worth, whilst consumer groups have expressed their opposition.  

The Pig Association said in November that the British pig industry is already a major recycler of appropriate food waste, and uses 1.23m tonnes a year of co-product from the human food chain, which accounts for 43.9 percent of total pig feed produced in the country.

The waste campaigners responded that feed production has been shown to be the principle factor in the environmental impact of pig production in Britain, and added that "There is an issue of social justice here that the NPA and BPEX do not address: namely that by buying huge quantities of grain on the global market to feed our livestock, we are diminishing the ability of people in poor countries to feed themselves."

According to figures from the UN FAO and University of Minnesota, upwards of one third (36 percent) of the global harvest goes to feed livestock, including 97 percent of soy and 74 percent of maize.

The Pig Idea campaigners said "it is time to lay aside the differences and focus on constructive dialogue." They concluded, "The UN has estimated that if we were to feed livestock primarily on waste and surplus food and agricultural byproducts, we could liberate enough grain to feed three billion people – far more than the number we expect to be sharing our planet with by 2050."

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