Pigs Without Borders: exposing the enablers

Intensive, industrial Australian pig farming harms Animals, the Environment and People

The Australian pork industry has been operating and expanding across Australia for six decades, largely modelled on intensive pig housing systems with maximum commercial yield capacities that operate in the US and Europe. Australian pig production for human consumption focusses on profit and ‘use’, rather than any concept remotely connected to animal sentience and welfare, sound environmental practices or sustainable and healthy food systems. Government apathy combined with a largely self-regulated industry that has escaped robust scrutiny, has allowed the current entrenched system to continue without accountability or transparency.

It doesn’t need to be this way…

Along the way, in addition to apathetic and economic focussed Australian governments’, other ‘enablers’ have enabled the ‘right to farm’ and ‘right to harm’ approach to fester, and with it, significant harm to millions of Australian pigs, our shared environment and people.

With your support, we are going to challenge and expose all these ‘enablers’.

“Not responding is a response - we are equally responsible for what we don’t do”

Jonathan Safran Foer

Image: Little Oak

Animals

The birth to slaughter lifecycle for the vast majority of Australian pigs raised for human consumption includes significant physical and psychological animal welfare risks and impacts. Many of these impacts are ongoing and permitted through legal exemptions contained in applicable animal welfare Acts, Regulations and Codes of Practice.

Most of these pigs are raised in industrial and intensive production housing systems in what can only be described as barren, unnatural and frequently overcrowded and unhygienic environments which lack enrichment and where confinement can lead to the pigs suffering ongoing boredom, frustration and chronic stress.

The significant animal welfare issues include but are not limited to:

Artificial insemination and forced matings: Artificial insemination and forced matings are standard practice in industrial Australian piggeries, and the breeding sows and boars endure these invasive practices, without consent, repeatedly throughout their short lifespans.
Confinement: Confinement in sow stalls, farrowing crates, bore stalls or group housing. Intensive confinement often leads to stereotypic behaviour and aggression and the restricted movement and complete lack of exercise invariably results in reduced bone strength, impaired mobility and compromised cardiovascular fitness.
Restricted feeding: Restricted feeding of breeding sows includes the common restriction of feed intake to improve productivity (e.g., pregnancy rate) and manage mobility issues of confined sows.
Stunning and slaughter practices which commonly include gassing with carbon dioxide gas, leading to a terrifying, painful and inhumane experience. All methods of stunning and slaughter are inhumane and invariably include the pigs being roughly handled and experiencing extreme fear and distress. No pig walks to its own death willingly.
Stereotypies: Stereotypies, such as repeated licking, bar biting or sham chewing, are abnormal repetitive behaviours which can occur when pigs are attempting to cope in response to stress or an inappropriate environment.
Separation: Early weaning through forced separation from the sow at three to four weeks of age rather than the gradual transition of around five months causes significant stress to piglets who are then housed with unfamiliar piglets.
Mutilations without pain relief: Routine, invasive, brutal and painful husbandry procedures without pain relief including tail docking, teeth clipping, ear notching and castration.
Blunt force trauma: Pig slamming or thumping where undersized or sick pigs are killed by blunt force trauma, usually by holding a piglet up by their hind legs and smashing their skulls into a hard surface, normally a concrete floor.
Long-distance transport can frequently involve interstate journeys in extreme weather.
Industry ‘welfare washing’: The industry’s ‘welfare washing’ and phrases like ‘pig protection pen’, ‘maternity ring’ and ‘humane slaughter’ don’t pass the pub test and don’t wash with us.

Environment

Industrial, intensive pig farming and pig slaughterhouses contribute to a wide-range of risks and impacts to the environment and biodiversity.

Environmental issues include but are not limited to:

Industrial, intensive piggeries and pig slaughterhouses are cesspits, emitting large volumes of pollution, including urine, faeces, and blood. A single pig can produce up to 250 litres of effluent per day.
Increasingly precious surface and groundwater resources are exploited and wasted to operate piggeries and pig slaughterhouses.
Frequent and ongoing issues relate to odour, water salinity, soil contamination, runoff, dust, noise, and general amenity.
Land clearing and habitat loss also significantly impacts biodiversity and ecosystems.

People

The people risks and impacts are significant and cut across a wide range of physical and psychological health issues affecting consumers, workers and the broad community.

Leading world health authorities such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) have continued to warn about the health risks of consuming pork products, the global spread of zoonotic diseases, and the emergence of pandemics, many of which emanate from the factory farming of animals, including pigs.
Imagine the distress of bearing witness to the relentless suffering of the pigs and feeling powerless to stop it, where your complaints are ignored because it's legal and government-approved.
Imagine living near an intensive piggery or pig slaughterhouse, where pig effluent is being spread, where large effluent ponds become your permanent view along with the dead pig compost pits, where the odour is so nauseating and the noise is so intense, you can't bear to go outside.
Those employed in these factory farm environments are expected to perform routine invasive and painful husbandry procedures on pigs including days old piglets and kill undersized or sick piglets or adult pigs. Slaughterhouse workers are, ongoing, witnessing terrified pigs screaming and resisting gassing and slaughter, yet participating in these processes, becoming completely de-sensitised to animal suffering and human compassion.
Workers in industrial, intensive piggeries and pig slaughterhouses are exposed to significant physical and psychological risks and impacts.
Industrial mishaps or accidents with equipment and stressed animals can occur.
Workers are also continually surrounded by animal urine, faeces, bodily fluids, blood and dead pigs.