Broken laws and scandalous cruelty
Joyce D’Silva reports on the impact of Compassion’s work to improve the lives of factory farm pigs and outlines what needs to be done, in no uncertain terms.
Every year, more than 1.3 billion pigs are slaughtered for meat worldwide. Compassion in World Farming has campaigned for years to ensure higher welfare standards for these animals.
Thanks to Compassion’s campaigning, sow stalls have been banned in the UK since 1999, and will be banned across the EU in 2013. Despite these achievements we still have so much more to do to protect the welfare of all pigs.
In its drive for ‘efficiency’, factory farming results in huge numbers of animals in small barren spaces. In the world of the factory pig farm, animals quickly become bored and frustrated and they often bite each other’s tails.
The factory farming solution: routine mutilation that contravenes EU law.
Instead of providing their pigs with a more interesting environment, many farmers simply cut off, or "dock", their tails. A report by the European Food Safety Authority found that over 90% of Europe’s pigs are tail-docked yet it is illegal to do this routinely. Factory farming also encourages unnaturally large litters, leading to greater competition for the sow’s milk and subsequent damage to her teats. It is the result of these unnatural conditions which makes other routine mutilations such as teeth clipping a ‘necessity’ in factory farms.
Compassion is determined to ensure that all European legislation designed to improve farm animal welfare is enforced, not ignored.
Compassion believes that such mutilations are completely unnecessary. High welfare farmers such as Hugh Norris of Plantation Pigs (see page 18) do not need to tail-dock, as their pigs are either outside with plenty to interest them all day long, or are kept in spacious indoor systems with plenty of straw in which the pigs can root with their sensitive and inquisitive snouts. It is in crowded factory farms, where the pigs get no straw and are often standing day after day on uncomfortable barren slatted floors, that aberrant behaviour such as tail-biting tends to occur. Boredom and frustration are both likely contributory factors. The factory farmers’ unacceptable solution: no tail = no biting.
The compassion solution: stop mutilations. Enforce enrichment laws.
With Belgium holding the presidency of the European Union between July and December 2010, we are urging the Belgian Minister to take action to enforce the bans on routine teeth clipping and tail-docking and to ensure that all pigs receive the enrichment materials which EU law requires.
Add your voice
Thousands of people have voiced their concern in support of our campaign. If you haven’t already, please add your voice and call upon the EU to enforce laws that are designed to prevent unnecessary suffering. You can take part online at ciwf.org/eupigs
In January 2010, Compassion unveiled the results of our film investigation into 74 pig farms across Europe. It was screened at the International Press Centre in Brussels and generated much comment in the media, within the European Commission and across the EU. The website of the UK National Pig Association referred to “the effectiveness of Compassion in World Farming lobbying in Brussels, particularly its use of videos of pig farms.” Our film showed that although routine taildocking is forbidden under EU law, in nearly all the farms we visited the pigs had had their tails cut back.