Pig farmers criticised a "flippant and disingenuous" ministerial response to their continuing plight after reinforcements to solve the industry's workforce crisis failed to arrive.
The government announced a series of measures in October aiming to fill a post-Brexit shortage of butchery workers in meat processing plants, which has created a crippling backlog of thousands of pigs on East Anglian farms.
It included offering 800 temporary six-month visas to foreign pork butchers, funding for a private storage aid scheme and a Slaughter Incentive Payment scheme, to increase the throughput of pigs through abattoirs.
But the National Pig Association (NPA) says very few butchers have arrived.
As a result, the backlog is not reducing and the NPA says at least 16,000 pigs have been culled on farms across the country.
Environment secretary George Eustice told the BBC's Farming Today programme earlier this week that the government had done "everything the industry asked us to do", adding: “What we now need is for them to implement what we've offered, which is to get those 800 butchers."
North Norfolk farmer Rob Mutimer, who is chairman of the NPA, said the visas were being offered through a small number of labour providers who were horticultural specialists.
"These are not the labour providers used by the meat industry, so there is only a dribble of these 800 butchers coming in," he said.
"We have asked George Eustice to convene a round table to get this sorted out three weeks ago, but we have heard nothing - and this is his flippant response on the radio.
"I am very upset and I think he is being rather disingenuous.
"It would be a lot better if Mr Eustice would come to the table and talk to us to stamp out these issues. We are pleased he has said he will help but to say he has done everything he can is plainly wrong."
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Responding to Mr Eustice’s prediction that things would be "back in balance by early next summer", Mr Mutimer said: "We started on about this last August and he is talking about fixing it by summer next year - there won't be any pig farmers left by then."
A Defra spokesman said: “We continue to work closely with the pig industry to help them respond to challenges caused by the pandemic, including the loss of exports to the Chinese market for certain pig processors and global disruption to CO2 supplies, all of which have contributed to a backlog of pigs."
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