2022-12-31-accounts

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BRITISH PIG ASSOCIATION ANNUAL REPORT 2023 ITIS Tls BPA. BPA.

Introduction

The BPA Annual General meeting finally returns to its regular schedule at the end of October after four years of disruption. When we adjourned the meeting on 26[th] October 2019 who could have predicted the chaos that lay ahead. Less than 6 months later we were in Covid lockdown. Within 24 hours of the announcement we had already secured confirmation that pig keepers were an essential part of feeding the nation and that our members would be able to continue moving their pigs and go about their daily business and we were able to adapt our office and working practices so that pedigree recording could continue uninterrupted. These disruptions took their toll on our plans to review our governance structure and so the whole project was delayed as we focussed on supporting our members whose businesses were dependant on local restaurants and pubs.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2021 that we were able to return to the business of reviewing our corporate governance and developing a plan for the next decade. That plan is now well underway.

We have refocussed our charitable objectives on Conservation and Sustainable Pork Production. Two new committees covering these core objectives will be formally launched by the new board of directors immediately after the Annual General Meeting. We have completely rewritten our constitution and in doing so we have turned the way that the Association works on its head, making it possible for any member who has the interest, time and skills to get involved. It has also allowed us to appoint two Non-Executive Directors: Anthony Davison and Ian Jones, both of whom have had an immediate impact on the Pork Committee as reported below.

Under the new constitution we will be electing one third of the board each year instead of a complete change of personnel every three years. Membership of the Board is now open to all our breeders and keepers and we hope that in the coming years we will be able to attract new faces with new ideas and the time and skills to help us achieve our core objectives.

As part of this transition we will be appointing six new board members at the Annual General Meeting each of whom will serve a three-year term and as soon as possible we will be appointing the remaining two Non-Executive Directors. The transition will be complete when the remaining two board members elected under the old constitution will step down ahead of our 25[th] Anniversary which we will celebrate on November 1[st] 2024.

Three of our current Trustees are leaving the Board but they will all continue their important work with the Association.

Tracey Bretherton has been a Trustee of the Charity since 2012. She has created a Youth Development Programme through the Junior Pig Club which is the envy of many other breed societies and conservation charities. At this year’s Future Stars competition held at the Malvern Autumn Show we were able to see just how far this programme has come as all the judges and stewards for the event were graduates of the Junior Pig Club. Tracey will continue to run our Youth Development Programme whilst also acting as a Breed Representative for the Middle Whites.

Maria Naylor has served as a Director and Trustee since 2018. She has embraced the new ways of working that have been opened up as result of the changes to our governance model. She has turned the Show Committee into an autonomous working group operating with devolved authority from the board of directors. She will continue to manage this important work stream with the support of her team of members without the need for staff resources from the BPA office.

Cover Photos – The Junior Pig Club – Future Stars. Tracey Bretherton, Maria Naylor, Nigel Overend

Nigel Overend was appointed as a Trustee in 2012. Over the last decade he has worked tirelessly to support our efforts to build a genebank that is a cornerstone of our conservation policy. As the first phase of that project draws to a close he will be taking time to develop his new business Origin Genetics Ltd and attend to family commitments. We will continue to work closely with Nigel on ex-situ conservation projects and we hope very much he will return to the board in the future when family and work commitments permit.

I would like to put on record my sincere thanks to Tracey, Maria and Nigel for all their support especially during the last four years as we have faced up to and overcome unprecedented challenges whilst at the same time completing a compete overhaul of our governance structure that will place us on a sound footing for the future.

The new board and the core committees will be announcing plans for the future in the next issue of Practical Pigs due out at the end of November but of course work has continued throughout the summer since the Annual General Meeting in May.

Pedigree Pork 2023

Throughout 2023 the Pedigree Pork Committee has continued its work to promote pedigree, sustainable pork production, recognising that this underpins ongoing conservation of our breeds.

Two Non-Executive Directors joined the BPA Board, both bringing a wealth of knowledge and food business experience to the BPA and the Pedigree Pork Committee. Ian Jones has already written an article on setting up a pork business in the Summer issue of Practical Pigs.

During September and October 2023, the Committee has hosted a series of webinars focusing on pork production and some of the wider issues currently facing small scale pig producers.

The BPA has joined forces with Anthony Davidson, Founder of Big Barn who has set up a map of BPA Pedigree Pork Scheme members. This map is available on the BPA Pedigree Pork website and links into the Big Barn map and other food focused websites. Each producer is represented by an icon on the map taking you through to a page where producers can include details of their pork business and availability. This is available to members as part of their BPA membership. There is an option to upgrade this listing to an online shop should members so wish, subject to a modest annual fee.

The first of our webinars saw a demonstration of the mapping system and the free view page as well as an online shop. Plans for future marketing initiatives mean that this should be a useful and important resource for members going forwards. In the second part of the webinar we looked at the requirement for vet attestations and the implications for members. Work relating to this in ongoing, with updates being provided when available.

We were subsequently fortunate to have a butchery demonstration by Simon Taylor, Captain of GB’s Butchery Team, talking through his experiences of running a successful butchery business and adding value to our pork, ably assisted by Ian Jones as our second webinar.

The third webinar drew upon the experiences of chef turned pig keeper Ian McEntire who was heavily involved in the Food Float, a community interest company promoting and selling produce from local producers and who now farms pigs and sheep in the Surrey Hills. The concept of the Food Float is pertinent to future plans of the Committee in developing a template for regional pork supply – part of the subject matter of the fourth webinar.

Our fourth webinar focussed on the future plans of the Committee – marketing, potential for regional co-operatives and more. We are keen to hear your suggestions for future work relating to Pedigree Pork. We are also planning a Pedigree Pork Product Competition as part of the English Winter Fair in Stafford in November 2023, something we hope to build on in coming years. We will continue to host a further series of webinars on issues relevant to our members.

The Committee is focused on increasing consumer awareness of the conservation benefits of eating Pedigree Pork and increasing engagement to encourage the active sourcing of pork from BPA members. Pedigree pork stickers have been available to members for several years and a series of promotional leaflets and posters are planned to support this. These will contain a QR code linking to the Pedigree Pork website and the producer map - ultimately people need to know where they can buy pedigree pork.

Enhancements are planned to the Pedigree Pork website to include more information about the conservation benefits of eating pedigree pork. It is not just pork, it is pedigree pork. Pedigree = provenance. The origin of our pigs can be traced back over many years, forming part of our history and culture and providing diverse genetics, already important in medicine, but with significant potential for future use in both medical and agriculture sectors. We need to press this message and encourage the public to help with ongoing conservation by eating our pedigree pork.

Conservation

Two key conservation projects have been undertaken during the summer.

In March of this year we learned with dismay that the Felton herd owned by the Earl of Plymouth Estate at Ludlow would be closing and the breeding herd would be sold or culled.

This herd was established in 2005 with some 30 foundation sows from the Bettws herd in Abergavenny and 4 boars from the Meurig, Beckfield and Windmill herds. Over the next 7 years another 7 boars were introduced from the Windmill and Forthill herds but from 2012 onwards the Felton herd operated as closed herd with no movements of breeding stock from or to other breeders.

As a result this herd represented a unique population within the Gloucestershire Old Spots breed that was very unrelated to the rest of the national herd. It was imperative that this genepool was preserved and distributed.

Working with the Estate, the Gloucestershire Old Spots Breeders Club and the RBST a plan was put in place to find homes for as many of the breeding pigs as possible. Some 30 distinct breeding sows without common parents were identified. This was not a case of looking at lines but simply unrelated sows within this unique population.

In the end it was only possible to secure 12 sows and two boars, however the sows were all in pig to a number of different Felton boars so the progeny from their litters will represent a much wider spread of the genetics from within the herd. These sows were not selected by bloodlines although they do represent 6 different lines. The key to their selection was that they are out of 10 different sires and 11 different dams. From the 12 sows there is only one pair of litter sisters and they have been split between England and Northern Ireland

Brian Kelly moved eight of the sows to Northern Ireland where they have been distributed to a number of herds including the Tannaghmore Farm Park which is an approved RBST centre. Those sows farrowed in England during their quarantine period. Most of the progeny will remain in England and those that are good enough for breeding will be made available for sale to other breeders so that the genetics can be spread throughout the herd. In addition a boar from the Felton herd has been standing at the AI centre at Deerpark so that breeders can use him on their sows which will further increase the distribution of these genetics back into the

wider national herd. Guy & Melany Kiddy purchased 4 in pig sows and a boar for their Balsham herd in Cambridgeshire. Three of these pigs were in pig to three different Felton sires. These have now all farrowed and some stock will be for sale in due course. The boar purchased has been used on some Balsham sows as well as the bought in sows’ and the first of these are due to farrow in September.

Going forwards we plan to add one Felton boar from each of the four male lines to the genebank to ensure that we maximise the diversity within the tank.

This is a good example of how a conservation project can be based on more than just the bloodlines. It also demonstrates how thanks to swift and decisive action and co-operation between the breed society, BPA, the breeders club, GOSPBC and the RBST important genetics were secured for distribution back into the national herd when they could so easily have been lost.

The 2022 Bloodline survey was encouraging in the sense that the decline in numbers amongst pedigree herds was not as severe as that suffered by the large-scale commercial herds. It did however highlight the plight of our modern native breeds. The British Landrace, Large White and Welsh breeds have suffered disproportionately over the last few years and numbers are approaching critical levels. Luckily there are still a handful of breeders who continue to pedigree record these important native breeds. In many cases they are persevering with herds established by their fathers and grandfathers in the hope of being able to pass them on to the next generation.

A joint project with the RBST has seen breeding packages of Large White pigs selected from the Least Related list and distributed to schools and farm parks. These pigs will be supervised by mentors to ensure that they are maintained as part of a breeding programme. Progeny from this programme will then be distributed on to new recipients with a view to establishing a wider network of schools, colleges and farm parks that will support the efforts of those dedicated breeders who continue to support the breed.

We have already completed our target lines for the British Landrace in the genebank and we will the adding the last of the Large White and Welsh lines to complete the modern breeds.

We will be launching our 2023 Bloodline survey immediately after the Annual General Meeting and would ask that all members complete their survey forms as quickly as possible so that we can publish our conservation plans as early as possible in the new year.

Show report

This was the first year that the new Show Committee has operated without support from the office and they did a magnificent job of checking catalogue entries and monitoring judging appointments. Plans are in hand for increased checking of ear numbers at shows next season and information on correct identification has been published.

Our social media team do an excellent job of publishing show results on the BPA Facebook page almost immediately after each show and we are very grateful for their efforts.

The BPA Pig of the Year Competition was judged by Stephen Booth at the Great Yorkshire Show and he chose the British Lop gilt Liskard Lulu 59 bred by Julian Collings as his champion. The Young Pig of the Year was held at the Malvern Autumn Show where we were delighted to see Steve Richardson back in the ring judging and making an excellent recovery. He chose the Large Black gilt Addison Golden Harvest 13 owned and bred by Jack Holroyd as the Young Pig of Year 2023.

Junior Pig Club

Working with schools is a key part of the Junior Pig Club programme. For some years now we have attended the School Farm Conference which brings together over 100 schools in a network under the umbrella of Social Farms and Gardens.

Our objective is to support School Farms and encourage them to keep pigs and preferably pedigree pigs as part of a conservation programme.

At this year’s Conference we gave a presentation on How Pigs Can Be Used in Cross Curricular Learning. We also gave a report on the Berkshire Pig Club Boar Feeding Trial carried out at Hopwood College in Manchester. We have featured this Farm to Fork project in previous issues with glowing reports from the College about how much the students had benefited from their work with the pigs.

Our support for schools includes hands on workshops with pupils and staff. We have held two workshops so far this year, one at Hopwood College and the other at the Elms School in Herefordshire where we were joined by pupils and staff from Brendon School in Worcestershire. These workshops were also an introduction to our Future Stars Competition where after a pilot last year, we have a special class for schools.

One of the problems that we often encounter with schools and other institutions is that as staff move on the focus on particular projects can change. The involvement of the club with our schools can help to solve this problem as we are able to offer mentors who provide continuity and experience. These mentors now come from within the ranks of the club itself as we see some of our longest serving members grow into young adults with a keen interest in pigs and pig breeding. These older members are the first generation to graduate from the Junior Pig Club into our Young Leaders Programme and we are very proud of them. This is exactly the outcome that we hoped for when we held our first meeting some 20 years ago in the ring at the Royal Show with John Herbert, Nick Kiddy and Tracey Bretherton. John, himself a retired teacher, would be very proud of the work of the Club that he helped to establish.

Most Agricultural Societies these days run an educational event aimed at schools as well as their flagship County Shows and this year we have attended CountryTastics at Malvern, CountryDays at Lincoln as well as providing an Education Centre at the Great Yorkshire Show.

This year we re-introduced our Junior Championship held at the Malvern Autumn Fair alongside our Future Stars competition. We had 48 junior members who qualified through Young Handler Competitions at shows around the country.

We would like to thank our sponsors: Rob and Kim Bemand of the Leysterspring herd for our lovely trophies, Jack and Jane Holroyd of the Addison Herd for our prize money and Crediton Milling for the goody bags and money for the Champion Jackets.

The Future Stars competition was again held at the Malvern Autumn Show on 23[rd] to 24[th] September. We are very grateful to the Three Counties Agricultural Society for their continued support.

22 teams were put through their paces in a programme that involves a wide range of skills. Marketing and Promotion. Public Speaking. Teamwork, Stock Judging and Livestock Handling and of course having fun. This year we had 7 school teams entered with their own competition sponsored by Con-tented Products who kindly provided one of their Pig Arks as first prize and which was won by Nightingale School.

We would like to thank all our Future Stars sponsors for their support for our flagship competition: For Farmers, Con-tented Pig Products, Massey Feeds, Selby and York Markets, Hopecottage Farm Shop, J Knaggs, J Penny, R Smith and the following Breed Clubs: Berkshire, British Saddleback, Gloucestershire Old Spots and Oxford Sandy & Black.

Full results, reports and photos will be published in the next issue of Practical Pigs.

Our three Ambassadors Grace Bretherton, Merryn Philp and Oliver Lightfoot. have worked relentlessly over the year visiting shows and promoting our programme and they will be joined by Lissy Horsley who will be a welcome addition to the team for 2024. Junior membership has increased this year and we look forward to many more graduates of our Youth Development Programme coming through to join the team and help build a future for pedigree breeding.

Communications Report

In the 2022 Annual report we introduced two new BPA social media platforms, Facebook, and Instagram. Since then, we have expanded our reach with a BPA You Tube channel on which we have uploaded three of our AHDB Feeding webinars, and, so far, one of our pork webinars. On Facebook and Instagram, we introduced our breeds and breed reps; BPA affiliated and accredited show results; Junior Pig Club activities; announced our Pork webinars and AHDB Feeding webinars; BPA members winners within the pork industry; Government key messages including the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway, government equipment grants and key rule changes e.g., vet attestation requirements.

Analysing the insights of our social media has shown that our ‘message reach’ far exceeds our organisation size. The BPA social media reached 53k individuals between 1st Jan and 17th October 2023. Benchmarking against similar organisations shows we are ahead in our post content, reach and almost in followers. This is excellent news to be able to promote the BPA organisation to Defra, AHDB Pork and other industry bodies to, hopefully, attract funding to extend our BPA activities, and to successfully demonstrate that the BPA can reliably be the ‘voice of the small-scale pig keeper’ – helping to protect all our pedigree pig herds.

A top 4 selection of our wide reach on different posts from 1st January 2023 to 17th October 2023

– Facebook (1.6k followers) Top 4 post reach

Our veterinary attestation post (6/10/23) has reached almost 10k individuals already; with 79 likes, 96 click links, 31 comments and 22 shares.
JPC Pig Camp round up (20/08/23) reached 6.6k; with 192 likes, 15 comments and 8
shares.
Has BPA History been made? With mangalitza pigs entering the qualifying round for POTY (12/07/23) with 6.3k reach; 231 reactions, 13 comments and 8 shares.
Young Pig of the Year results (24/09/23) with 6.3k reach; 346 reactions, 23 comments and 14 shares

Our Instagram is comparable with other similar organisations, running at around 20% of the followers on Facebook. The Instagram audience is different in the posts most liked, with the government messages being the most popular. Further work to increase the Instagram following has started by broadening our use of simple hashtags e.g., #pigs #pedigreepig to enable us to be ‘found’ more easily. This should increase our reach statistics.

With our social media now established and performing well, the comms team* have been formalising how to extend our reach beyond immediate social media to engage with different member audiences e.g., further platforms will be introduced shortly, including BPA Spotify Podcast and BPA TikTok channels. Practical Pigs magazine purchased a Go Pro for us and we have started shooting our ‘how to’ videos, which will be put on our BPA You Tube and Tik Tok channels.

Our social media channels provide a day to day means of communication with members in support of the news pages on our website and our BPA Newsletter which is published in partnership with Practical Pigs magazine where we continue to provide important technical articles aimed at all small scale pig keepers.

We have a whole host of other ideas, some of which will require expanding the team, keep an eye out on our social media for the skills we are looking for to join the Comms team; or better still, if you have a skill set you think would be useful then please do get in touch comms@britishpigs.org or speak to a member of the team: Michaela Giles, Merryn Philp, Oliver Giles, Chris Impey, Harri Heeley, Gavin Pawson, Jason Knaggs, Joshua Farrell, Maria Naylor and Grace Bretherton. We would also like members to post their successes, husbandry tips, and anything else other members would find interesting to our social media channels – so share away.

Partnership Working

We continue to work with Government to represent the interests of all small-scale pig producers and this was never more evident than in the recent issue around Veterinary Attestations. Government departments assumed that these would not be a problem for the pig sector as all pigs are in Red Tractor. We disabused them of this idea and for the last few months we have been working closely with other livestock associations representing sheep and cattle farmers as well the representatives of the abattoirs and markets to try and minimise the disruption for non-assured producers.

In this area we have received considerable support from AHDB with whom we have been working closely to amend the eAML2 movement licence form so that non assured producers can add their veterinary assessment number (VAN). Markets and abattoirs will then be able to pick up the VAN from the movement licence allowing them to sell to the highest bidder or dispose of all parts of the carcass to the most profitable market. Links from the movement licence form direct non-assured producers to the BPA website for pig specific advice. The Levy board are also working with us to identify abattoirs that will not require the VAN so that we can publish a list for those producers who are unable to get a vet visit ahead of the deadline.

As a member of the Technical Design and User Group we continue to oversee the development of a new multispecies Livestock Information System that will eventually replace the current movement licencing system and it is thanks to our membership of this group that we have been able to influence policy and resolve some of the problems associated with the Veterinary Attestations. We are lucky that the current pig movement licencing system is the envy of other species. This is a direct result of the involvement of AHDB in setting up a codesign forum where industry and government worked together to develop a system that would work for all producers. Our aim is that any replacement for eAML2 will be an improvement on what is already a very good service managed by AHDB.

AHDB has always been ready to help in time of crisis. Most recently during the feed crisis they helped us to organise an excellent series of webinars on the safe use of alternative feeds. The recordings of these webinars can be found on our YouTube channel and they have been watched by hundreds of producers.

The Association has always maintained that the whole pig industry including both large and small producers benefits from an industry funded levy board. As the industry becomes more consolidated with larger companies controlling an ever-increasing proportion of the production this becomes especially true for the small independent producer. Large vertically integrated businesses might be able to replicate some of the AHDB work for themselves but that would never be possible for the smaller independent producers. Controlling exotic disease and the threat it poses to our native breeds and our members businesses is crucial and forms an important part of the work that we undertake in partnership with AHDB. We were founder members of the Pig Health and Welfare Council which is managed by AHDB and we continue to be represented on both the pig health and food safety sub-groups. Exports may not seem important to smaller producers but they contribute over £50 to the price of every pig slaughtered and without them every producer would be worse off. The work on opening and maintaining export markets can only be undertaken as a collective exercise in partnership with AHDB and other levy boards.

The crisis of the last few years has seen overall sow numbers decline and at the same time decisions by government on VAT have had a very severe impact on the amount of levy income received by AHDB. The levy rate per pig has not been increased for 20 years. If AHDB is to continue to support these important programmes a small increase is essential. The Association supports the need for a well-funded producer run organisation that can work collectively with all sectors of the industry including both assured and non-assured producers.

As members of the Small Abattoir Working Group we have welcomed the announcement of £4m of funding for abattoirs with a throughput of less than 10,000 livestock units and we will work to ensure that abattoirs can invest in the facilities needed to process pigs that are not from controlled housing.

We have been very engaged in the work of the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway. We continue to remind the Pathway board of their commitment to universal participation and we welcome the recent announcement to remove some of the restrictions that were preventing our members from taking part. We will continue to work with the Pathway to find ways for even the smallest producers to be involved. We see this as the best way to develop an assurance scheme suitable for smaller producers.

In the summer we met with former Defra Secretary of State and pedigree pig breeder George Eustice to develop a Native Breeds Support Fund. Thanks to his intervention we have already had a very successful meeting with the Farming Minister, Mark Spencer along with other organisations including the RBST and other livestock associations. We are optimistic that this will lead to some specific programmes to support native breeds. We look forward to the next round of meetings in December where we will continue to push for programmes that are mot limited to grazing animals and can be used to support native breed pigs.

Our annual bloodline survey is published by the Defra UK Genetics, Livestock and Equine committee as part of the National Inventory which forms the basis for the Breeds at Risk Register. We have recently been involved in the establishment of a Bio-Banking subgroup under this committee which we hope will lead to the establishment of a National Livestock Genebank to complement the one already in place for Plant Genetic Resources. The UKGLE committee is also responsible for the rules governing breed societies and pedigree breeding and as members of the Zootechnical sub-group we will continue to push for legislation that protects our native breeds.

In the event of an outbreak of exotic disease industry and government come together in a core group to manage the response to the disease. This is one of the key lessons learned from the Foot and Mouth outbreaks of 2001 and 2007. The Association sits on the Pig Core Group alongside the National Pig Association and we continue to push for an exercise to test our Breeds at Risk Policy so that we can be sure that where possible our pedigree registered native pig breeds will be spared from pre-emptive or precautionary culling. Together with the NPA we are pushing for Defra and APHA to conclude their amendments to the African Swine Fever legislation so that we can confirm our regionalisation policies and put them to the test in an exercise. We raised this issue with Mark Spencer when he attended a recent meeting of the Livestock Chain Advisory Group of the which the Association is a long standing member.

We continue to work closely with the Rare Breeds Survival Trust in many areas including our Genebanking project. We were delighted to celebrate their 50[th] anniversary at both Jimmy’s Farm and the House of Lords. We look forward to returning the invitation during our own 25[th] anniversary next year.

Conclusion

I cannot conclude the report without the thanks of all those people who enable the BPA to function as it does, we have excellent staff led superbly by Marcus Bates supported by Diane and Sarah. As I mentioned at the start of the report the last four years have been not been the easiest and administrating the organisation has had his challenges. As we move forwards into our new way of working you can be sure we will remain membership focussed, promoting and preserving the pigs in the best ways possible. We have support from grassroots ensuring our herdbooks are consistent, up to date and correct. We also have of course our breed reps, our committee chairs and committee members all working for the benefit of you our members and the pigs you keep. I wish to thank each and everyone of them and of course you our breeders. None of us can function without the other and together we are strong, and it is by working together we will achieve our aims and protect the individuality of the pigs and breeds we keep and for that I conclude by thanking you all. Thank you for all you do in the name of the association.

Chris Impey – Chairman

Finance Report December 2022, with Outlook for 2023

Since the adoption of revised Articles of Association in February 2022, the Board of the BPA has embarked on its change program to ensure the BPA modernises, provides an inclusive organisation for all its members and diversifies its income base to ensure its future as an independent Charity.

Like many medium sized Charities in the post CoVid period, the BPA faces significant challenges and it is useful to reflect on this against the background of the Charity Sector as a whole.

Research undertaken by the Government at the end of 2021 showed that Charities had proved to be adaptable to take steps to address the challenges faced. Nearly half of charities affected took action to adapt their services, focusing on core projects moving to online services and cutting staff and other fixed costs.

The Charities Aid Foundation, in 2022, reported that 58% of 547 UK Charity Leaders felt that generating income and finding financial stability was one of the top challenges in the year.

A subsequent review conducted by Connect Assist in May 2023, highlighted the impact of Government Funding cuts, which in 2019/2020 had already fallen by £684m representing over 26% of UK Charity sector income. This review also highlighted the fact that 55% of Charities had to use their reserves whilst they looked at diversifying sustainable income.

The BPA has been no exception. Faced with the sudden elimination of certain Grant funding and further hampered by the post Brexit environment for pedigree breeding stock and pork exports, the income shortfall projected in 2022 and beyond required the Board to take immediate cost saving steps and put in place initiatives to rebalance the BPA finances.

Given our experience over CoVid lockdown and the lessons learnt from home working, the Board agreed that we could continue to operate efficiently in a virtual office environment. We had already appointed Breed Representatives who would provide Breed specific help to Pedigree members, delegating to these Breed Representative, the ability to resolve and agree some common problems. In addition, with the launch of the new Grassroots system, we had more user functionality to enable Pedigree Members to access and update their information.

Accordingly, in February 2023, the Board agreed a cost saving initiative such that:

We move to a virtual office and give notice to the landlord on 01/03/23, effective 09/23
We reduce the ‘office’ staff retaining only admin support for Pedigree services

By moving to a virtual office environment and reducing admin support we could affect annual savings of circa £47K BUT these will not take effect until after September 2023 (when the lease termination became effective). There was also some one off costs e.g. redundancy to fund in 2023.

This has now been implemented.

However, this was just one part of a broader program of change.

You may recall that in July 2021, the BPA Trustees undertook to a 10 year plan discussion, in which the financial challenges of the BPA were set out.

The change in the BPA Constitution was key to underpin the work needed as a Governance framework, which would enable the BPA to be less centralist, more agile and flexible, attracting people with the key skills to manage and drive forward the Charity in such a challenging environment was essential.

Further we would reposition the BPA such that we would:

Establish a Sustainable Pork Production Committee that can address and influence issues arising from such issues as Trichinella, influence Government policy as well as develop a small pork producer member inclusive assurance and marketing strategy.
Improve our communications policy, with improved Social Media activity to reach a larger proportion of our membership as well as encourage new members who can see the broad range of work the BPA undertakes.
Determine what products and services we will have available to which groups of breeders, pork producers and other pig keepers so this can be built into our pig recording systems

All of this in addition to our core Conservation objectives.

Following the adoption of the new Articles, we appointed two Non-Executive Directors, who have hit the ground running and been instrumental in helping to refocus our Pork initiatives, with assistance on marketing, regulatory and butchery virtual workshops. In the first of a series over the September/October 2023 period over 80 members registered.

Clearly, this is just a start but it is a positive indication of member engagement in areas where we have previously had low levels of interest.

The BPA Pork Committee is working hard to encourage smaller pork keepers and producers, not already members to have a greater involvement with the BPA and to join the organisation.

Our target is to treble BPA membership, through the pork production initiatives but this is not realistic overnight, as many of the initiatives will take 12 months plus to deliver and there is an inevitable lag time between delivery and a rise in membership.

The above outlook and program provides the context for looking at the Financial results for

the year ending December 2022.

The BPA made a net deficit of £81,793 in the year compared with deficit of £13,136 in the previous year. The regulatory format for Charity accounts, which requires an allocation of income by Charitable activity and Governance costs may be unfamiliar to those used to corporate account format, but the annual trends show income from export and international grants and support has reduced by £168K since 2019.

Against the volatility in Global Markets, the value of our investments declined by £61K resulting in a year end value of investments of £464,898.00 (£607,850).

With the exception of £4701.00, all of the BPA’s reserves are unrestricted, which means that the funds may be used to meet our cash flow needs.

In the year to 31 December 2022, we sold investments with a market value of £45,000 (original

cost £40,632).

Notwithstanding the market volatility, the investment fund has continued achieve its overall target return of 4%p.a.

Sadly, the situation in relation to the lack of grant and trade support has continued into 2023 and the Board is committed to taking further steps to stem the expected deficit in the current year with a key focus on income diversification and cost containment.

The following plan has been discussed at the Board and will be endorsed at the Board meeting

following the AGM.

1. Impose strict budget control for the key areas of Charity Activity. No expenditure outside of budget will be considered unless there is an immediate positive payback for the cost.

2. We undertake a further cost cutting review before the end of 2023.

3. We actively support and promote the Pork Initiatives and seek new membership at an annual subscription of £50.00 per member for non pedigree keepers and producers.

4. We meet the cash flow shortfall for 2023 from the unrestricted investment reserves.

5. Every quarter we confirm or amend the recovery program based upon the progress made via the Pork Initiatives and membership growth.

6. We have a formal recovery review at June 2024, to determine whether we can continue independently.

7. We focus Communication strategy on Pork and encouraging non pedigree participation.

8. We confirm the key strategic committees as Pork and Conservation, with each to set out its long term plan to be delivered at, and monitored by the Board.

9. We formally evolve the Junior Pig Club into a Young Pig Keeper Development Group, reporting to the Board.

10. We establish the Pedigree Pig showing Group, to have its own Budget, reporting to the Board.

It is recognised that this is a challenging and big agenda, which we must be committed to in terms of time and effort. However, we must also be realistic and practical. We have the skill and agility to turn this situation around but equally must not underestimate the challenge ahead.

Chris Coe - Treasurer

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'IMEBRrtlSH PIG ssocIATtON (A c(mpony limitedby Guararttce) REPORT tNCL si ES. NUA croRS' REPORT ER20 cnmply ivith the Companies ALt and semert of Prncticc appli¢able to charities preparing their acLY)w)ts IN accordgnce the FinwKiaJ Rrwtting Sta]thd 2ppli¢Èbk itt tbe and Republic of Ire]and (FRS I2}. They aye also YeSnSIble fiK safeguarding the asts or the cotsJp8ny and hence f•r tskin8 iworoble Ste Ibr tL prevention and ddeai<)n of fraud ard other iftegularitics. Reporting aeeountgnts attd indepentht exRmitser Il'e, the diteetors of the compgJJy who k]d 0frri at tb2 de of appoval of t5¢ Finala1 Statemetys as set out aknve eacb confrtw So far as ate aw4rK tbat.. we have taken ¥J] tbe that we ougbt to Iwe tsken as directo in order to m8ke ourselves wareofallyrel¢vatt itifornaiioll and kn cstabli51k that the COMFW'S indeEt]th exami is awareof tbat infgtmation. Apprfjv The board of dtrectors and t¢¢3 awroved tkni5 tK)rt on 19th Septemtrrtr 2023 and signed o its bebalf. On behalf of thc C. fmEry Chgir Peyson TDtstre 19th Septemlxr2023

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THE BRrrIsH PIG ASOQ IATION (A Lompanj limiled by (iuarantee) REPORT OF THE ENDEPEN'DENT EXAMINER I have no concems and haie come across no other matters in connection with the exarninalion to hich attenlion should be drawn in this report in order to enablc a propcr undcrstandin¥ of th¢ aecountg to be reached. Kishor Khanderia ACA AgutteT Khanderia Chartered accountants The InstiLuÈe of Cbdrtered ALLounlants in Engylimd (d Wdleb (ICAEW} 27 Imperial Drive Harro HIL? 7DG UK 19th September 2023

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THE BRfTISHPIG ASSOCL4TlnN (A ¢omFQll)' liti)iteit byGwante¢) AS AT 31st DECEMBER2022 The kn]gtee5 have preed these #rwunts in erd[e the JxoiistOL8 of the Compajjies A 2006 8nd of the Charsties Aet 2011. The ¢l]aYitable Company is eotiiled to ekemption from audit widet section 477 of tbe COmrAleS Act 2006 for the IE&r ended 31st IkcemF£r2(IY2. The have not deposited tjotice PWBuaDt to ctÈon 476 of the Compnie6 Act 2006 requEring all audit of t1¢ financial State¢ts. The trnstees acknowle4g2 their TeswbAtities t•r. (a) ensuring tbat thc chatitable Compny keeps accoutttin8 [d5 comply wth tiOnS 386 atjd 387 of the Comparn&% Act 2006. 2nd (b} prepaing fitwjcial statements ivhich give a aDd foir Mew 4)f ttle 5tste of afyirs of ch&itsble Ci)mpany as at tl d of e¥h tinantial year attd of its SW)1 ot deficit f•r each financial }rar in aeeordan(x with th¢ Tequinnents of sections 394 and 395 of the Compari Act 2006 relating to fjnanciaj statellknts so far as appliethle to thectwit&ble C1)1Th).. The fin8neial State[nets were appThrd gmd authoiised f•r i&we by Boatd on 19th Sepiankr 2W23. Signed on behalf of the IM)ard of t$t$.. C. ImpEy {Dtrector and Mrs C Coe IDirec*i)r and truske) Ile note8 on page3 15 to 26 f•rni oftEwE firm181 statemmts. ComFAny retiOn number.. 00022088

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Introduction

Pedigree Pork 2023

Conservation

Show report

Junior Pig Club

Communications Report

Partnership Working

Conclusion

Finance Report December 2022, with Outlook for 2023

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