GYLLE

The advantage of living in the Danish countryside in springtime is seeing the massive changes in nature. The disadvantage is having to put up with the smell of "gylle" (pig slurry) on the fields.

Let me say up-front that I like pigs a lot. When I first met my wife, she gave me a psychological test, which involved - inter alia - telling her my favourite animal. I said a pig, because it was friendly. I am not sure what the answer was supposed to signify about me; but it must have been OK, since I am still married to her (my wife, that is).

Pigs are a BIG deal in Denmark. There are 5.5m people, but 12.5m pigs, down from 14m a couple of years ago. To put that into perspective, that is more than two and a half times the pig population of the United Kingdom, which has 10 times as many people. In fact, the pig effect is even bigger than suggested, since breeding sows have 8-12 piglets, twice a year. In 2007, Denmark slaughtered 22.4m pigs, and exported a further 3.8m piglets. The EU overall has a perennial trade deficit with Japan, but Denmark is about the only country that has a trade surplus, thanks mainly to pork exports. I have visited Danish Crown's new factory in Horsens, which can supply 2% of the world's pork consumption with just 1,400 employees. It exports to over 130 countries.

In line with developments elsewhere in Europe, the number of farms in Denmark halved in the 20 years between 1986 and 2006. But the number of pig farms fell even faster, from a proportion of just under half to around a sixth, even as production was rising. That has led to a rapid increase in the average size of each farm. In 1986, over 65% of pig farms had less than 200 pigs, and only a handful had more than 5,000; by 2006, more than 15% of farms, representing half of total production, had more than 5,000 pigs. Farmers want to up the maximum to 25,000.

This "industrialisation" of the pork industry, 80% of which is on Jutland, where the land is often of poor quality and so not good for much else, has been great for Denmark's agricultural competitiveness and general economy. But there is a downside, and it is a big one; the average pig produces about twice as much waste as the average human. Do the math, as my son would say. Twice as much per porker multiplied by a throughput which is 4-5 times the human population, and you end up with a lot of pigshit, perhaps ten times the load on the public sewage system.

That has two consequences. The first is the gradual buying-up of spare agricultural land by pig farmers, not necessarily because they want to farm it, but because they need a place to spread all of that muck. The continual grumble of the local arable farmers is that they can't expand their farms to an economic size, because everything is being bought up by the pigmen. The field over the road from our house is a case in point; when sold, it went to the pig farm located - thankfully - out of sight over the hill rather than to the farmer who had the neighbouring piece of land.

The second is that smell. I am used to it now, but there is no doubt that there are times in the year, when it is really bad. Pig farms have huge "gylle" tanks for storing the stuff, and farmers drive around with massive "gylle" wagons, complete with a vast array of hoses; get stuck behind one of them on a main road and you'll notice it! Some years ago we nearly bought a house in the nearby village, where there are three pig farms. When we asked the estate agent "does it smell?", he was rather evasive and said "from time to time". I am very glad we didn't buy the house, since every time I cycle through that village, it stinks.

People are beginning to question whether the relentless increase in the size of pig farms is worth it. There is now a national association for "gylleramte" (people affected by gylle), who are active in questioning whether huge farms should get their environmental clearance certificates. And the tourist industry is worried. Although Germany is Denmark's biggest export market for pigs, German tourists are also one of the biggest contributors to the service sector. They are less likely to visit, if the whole place smells like a sewage works. However pretty the view.

Walter Blotscher