Cruel Mistreatment On Italian Pig Farm
Investigators from Animal Equality Italy, in collaboration with Italian television station La7, have documented terrible suffering on an intensive pig farm in the Northern Italian province of Brescia, in the region of Lombardy.
Over eight million pigs are raised every year on industrial farms in Italy; almost one and a half million of these animals are farmed in Brescia.
The horrific footage shows:
- Pigs abandoned and left to die in corridors
- Bodies of dead pigs amongst the living
- Pigs with cysts and sores, some unable to walk because of their severe open wounds
- Workers using ropes to drag pigs along the floor by their legs
- Pigs forced to live in unhygienic conditions, among faeces and urine
Based on our findings, a formal complaint against the farm has been delivered to the Prosecutor’s Office of Brescia. In Italy, our team has launched a petition calling on the Italian Government to ensure the regulations on animal welfare are complied with and that more frequent inspections are carried out on farms.
Around 60% of the pig meat consumed in the UK is imported from countries in the European Union; and Italian pork products such as pancetta, Parma ham and salami are popular in Britain. If the images from this farm concern you, you can help pigs like these by choosing to eat plant-based foods instead of animal products.
The cruelty we filmed on this farm is yet more evidence of the harsh reality of the pig meat industry – marketing campaigns try to trick consumers into believing that animals raised for consumption are well cared for but as our investigations have proved time and time again, nothing could be further from the truth. We recently filmed similar scenes of suffering on a ‘quality’ assured pig farm in Scotland and have launched a petition to the UK Government calling for increased legal protections for pigs.
