No more Pigs in Comino? KIM applies to relocate pig farm

The Pig Breeder’s Cooperative (KIM) has applied to re-locate its breeding centre to Ghammieri. This emerges from a project development statement (PDS) presented to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) last week which earmarks the development of a breeding centre on a site already used by the same cooperative to host young pigs brought over from Comino before these are distributed to other farms.

The application also has the support of the Veterinary Department within the Ministry for Resources and Rural Affairs.

But the proposed development, as well as the present pig farm, border on an area identified by MEPA for an extension of the Marsa golf course across the present road.

The Comino farm was set up with Cuban assistance in the 1980s after the country’s pig population was wiped out a swine fever epidemic in 1979.  Environmental NGOs had repeatedly denounced that sewage from the farm was dumped at sea.

The farm is already being depopulated in preparation for its closure. The pig population in Comino declined from 6000 in 1992 to only 1200 in 2009. The Comino farm is used as a breeding centre, producing animals which are then distributed to other commercial farms.

The site on which the breeding centre is to be established is already a pig farm. It is currently used for the growing of pigs brought from the Comino farm or from abroad. Pigs are currently brought there at about 30kg of body weight and kept until they are sold on to commercial farms in Malta and Gozo as breeding animals.

This farm will be depopulated and completely re-constructed.  One of the aims of the project will be the production of semen of high genetic merit, to be distributed to commercial farms to inseminate sows for meat production.

According to plans submitted to MEPA, animal waste from the new plant will be channeled through passages to water-tight, underground stores. In this way, waste will never come into contact with soil to avoid leaching, which contaminates the water table with nitrates.

All animals will be housed indoors, and all buildings will be ventilated artificially, to reduce the release of foul odours at ground level. In addition, all slurry will be channeled through underground channels into underground slurry tanks, so that no gasses are released except to a every two weeks, when slurry tanks are  emptied into bowsers.