The government is under pressure to stop illegal meat being smuggled into the UK, amid warnings of a “foot-and-mouth” level crisis for British farmers.
The amount of meat seized by Border Force officials has doubled in a year, according to data obtained by BBC News.
The data suggests more meat is entering the country in fewer vehicles, which experts say indicates a rise in organised crime.
Meat imports classed as illegal have often not gone through checks to confirm they are disease-free and conform to UK health standards.
An outbreak of the highly contagious African swine fever has been spreading across Europe’s pig herds since last summer.
Farmers and MPs have called on the chancellor to fund more stringent border controls in next week’s Budget to prevent the disease from entering the UK.
The President of the National Farmers’ Union, Tom Bradshaw, told the BBC that he was not confident the government would introduce the measures he believed were necessary.
“We’ve got a line in the Labour manifesto that food security is national security. Now at the moment there’s a very real risk that they are just words on a piece of paper rather than meaningful policy,” he said.
Mr Bradshaw said African swine fever “could spread very rapidly through our pig herd and have huge, huge implications”.
“At a time of such geopolitical uncertainty, making sure that we have the capability to produce the foods that everyone needs, it should be a political imperative,” he added.
The large rise in illegal meat is likely to be down to more stringent restrictions around the import of pork products, an overall increase in the price of meat and more organised criminal activity.
It is understood that red meat makes up the majority of the seizures, but the exact breakdown of beef, pork and lamb is not known.
African swine fever leads to very high death rates among infected pigs and currently has no effective treatment or vaccine.
Conservative MP Dr Neil Hudson, who worked as a veterinary surgeon during the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak, is among those calling for border and health authorities to be given more money.
“If African swine fever comes into the country, that would be as catastrophic as foot-and-mouth,” he said.
“Vets such as myself were deployed into the front line to supervise the culls and I witnessed sights then that I never want to see again in my lifetime.”
He wants the chancellor to fully refurbish the UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency at a cost of £2.8bn.
“I know this is a lot of money, but you need to spend money now to prevent catastrophe in the future,” he added.
The National Audit Office estimated that the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak cost the UK economy £8bn, equivalent to around £14.5bn today.
Home Office figures, obtained by the BBC using Freedom of Information laws, show the amount of illegal meat seized by Border Force officials doubled from almost 35,000kg in 2022/23 to more than 70,000kg in 2023/24.
Figures for the first four months of 2024/25 suggest another large increase will be recorded by the end of the financial year.
END
