The Pig Business Blog

Its always encouraging to get emails of support, and below is one that really struck me. Suzanne kindly agreed to let us publish it. We are definately getting more attention in the US, especially on a local grassroots level the message seems to be getting through- encouraging signs.

I just finished watching Pig Business on You Tube as the movie has not been released in the USA – as you well know.

I don’t know of ONE local butcher within 50 miles of my home. In fact, I don’t know of anyone who buys their meat from a local butcher.

I live in Lake Worth, Florida and the honest truth is that it appears that most people are oblivious to their relationship with food. Somehow, the line, We Are What We Eat has been lost. You’ve been to the US food stores – what is on the shelves is a reflection of the American shopping habits. I used to be one of those shoppers. But no more.  For the sake of our planet, I can not and refuse to contribute to the factory farming menace by buying that meat. Those days are long gone for me. Thank God.

Thank you for all that you are doing.

If anyone does want to organise a screening of the film in the US, or anywhere in the world, you can do so free of charge. Just email us on info@pigbusiness.co.uk

The industrial food system that is shown in Pig Business is spreading round the world. Watch Food Inc to witness its full brutal force.

UK: http://www.foodincmovie.co.uk/

US: http://www.foodincmovie.com/

Recently I visited Llywd Ffranc farm near Abergavenny in South Wales with about 20 children from a local primary school. It’s not a large farm, with a few sheep, a big area of woodland and about 10 or so Tamworth pigs.

It was a great chance for the children to learn about their food and where it comes from, about the woodland and keeping warm in the winter and about the pigs. They loved learning about and seeing the pigs and were more than a little suprised to come across one of the sows, which was about 3 times the size of them, just wondering around in the many acres of woodland while we were walking.  Even though it was about 2 degress, all the pigs were outdoors and all were very healthy and very inquisitive. The sow we met especially, was certain we had food and joined our long line of children and adults as we walked up the wooded hillside until realizing she was out of luck on this occasion. It was a great day and nice to see a farm open up to a group of 7 and 8 year olds to help them learn about farming and explore.

Educating chidren or anyone about food and farming is so important and it can only be benificial to see more of this kind of teaching. But it shouldn’t just focus about livestock, Kids should learn about all the things they eat what they eat, or more appropriately what they refuse to eat.  As Jamie Oliver proposed in a recent talk what needs to change in our food should come through our education system, teaching children about food and how to cook. Teaching the kids of today is an vital step in changing the food system of tomorrow for the better.

Aside from this what I learnt from the day was that the pigs seemed to have a pretty nice life and the kids enjoyed it too.

A short version of Pig Business intended for use in classrooms, along with an educational pack, has been made available to schools. If you are interested in helping us by holding a screening in your local school, or want the film to be shown in class, do let your children’s teachers know. If you have any other suggestions or questions please get in touch with us on info@pigbusiness.co.uk

Zac Goldsmith, Tracy Worcester, Miranda Richardson and Tom Parker-Bowles

Tracy presents the event

Zac Goldsmith talks before the film clips are shown

Kate Parkes from RSPCA talks about welfare and labelling

Zac along with MPs, NGOs and members of the food industry are gathered in the crowd

Peter Stevenson from Compassion in World Farming speaks on pig welfare, while other experts listen on

In attendance: Iain Duncan-Smith MP

In attendance: Explorer David Hempleman-Adams!

In attendance: Peter Ainsworth MP

Professor Vyvyan Howard speaks about the issue of pollution and disease

The following speaker, Richard Young Soil Association Policy Adviser (4th left on above photo): “Pigs and humans are genetically very similar, and some people will say they’re similar in other respects as well, and its not surprising that some of the diseases that develop in pigs can pass to humans, and cause infection there, we know about the obvious ones like Salmonella and Campala Bacta, but there are many others that cause infection frequently and when they do can be quite serious. One that’s gaining increased awareness at this time is Hepatitis E which is very common in pigs and is now increasingly being recognized as the cause of meningitis particularily in older men.”

Stewart Houston from BPEX stands up for the UK farmer on the destruction of rural livelihoods

Stewart Houston: “Ive agreed… with the support for calls for better labeling, the industry’s been doing quite a bit of work through the pig industry task force on this, we fought long and hard for clearer labeling to provide unambiguous consumer choice and confidence, there will be a voluntary code forthcoming in the EU but we’ve also developed through the task force, a code of conduct that we hope that all of our retailers will buy into. It’s a voluntary agreement but its been reached by the pig meat supply chain task force which was brought together by DEFRA and chaired by food and farming minister Jim Fitzpatrick.”

Helen Browning inspires us to strive for a better way of farming, and shows pictures from her farm in Wiltshire Downs

Helen Browning: “For me and other organic farmers, our pigs are intergrated into our fertility building systems in a way that benefits the environment, benefits human and pig welfare.”

“A little goes a long way, we don’t need to eat as much meat as we do, maybe we should be eating less, but better quality”

Experts engaged: Helen Rimmer from Friends of the Earth answers questions

Questions from the floor: Debate is sparked by David Handley Farmer for Action

Toxico-pathologist Vyvyan Howard (L) speaks with Epidemiologist Mark Enright

The discussion continues…

The evening ends but left on screen a vision for the future of pig farming?

By Tracy Worcester

Simply labelling pig meat products with their country of origin won’t change consumer behaviour. Telling people how it was produced just might

Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, recognises that ‘the public is increasingly interested in where food comes from’. He has promised to lobby Europe on the issue, but in the meantime wants companies to sign up to a voluntary country of origin labelling scheme.

However, Stan McCarthy, CEO of Kerry Foods recently told me that he was not keen even on this voluntary country of origin label, preferring to preserve the company’s present lack of labelling on products like Walls, Richmond and Mattesons sausages.

And who can blame him? His company has to compete with the other manufacturers that sell the cheapest pork without labels, and no one will jump first if they don’t have to. And let’s face it – a label disclosing that the pork in your sausage comes from all over the EU is not good PR. Voluntary labelling means manufacturers will probably ignore it.

But even is this country of origin labelling were made mandatory, how many members of the general public know that the UK has more humane methods than any other EU country except Sweden? Or that Spain and Belgium are the least humane? My guess is not many.

Forget country of origin; go welfare

Most surveys show that consumers want to know about the method of production of the pork they buy. So why isn’t the Government pressing for mandatory welfare labelling as well as country of origin labelling?

None of the politicians at the recent Oxford Farming Conference would support this. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs shadow minister, Nick Herbert, said that, on top of all the other information, adding welfare details to packets might create an information ‘fog’.

Having no welfare labels on products makes good business sense because it hides from the consumer the uncomfortable fact that, unless it says otherwise, the pork has most probably been raised in horrendous conditions in factory farms where any animal welfare laws, are routinely broken, particularly on the continent.

A recent report for BPEX, the British pig producer’s organisation, found that about half of UK consumers believe that pigs are ‘fairly’ well-treated. This lack of clarity is a public relations success for the meat industry.

A recent Compassion in World Farming report found that between 70 and 100 per cent of the farms they inspected in four European countries deprived the pigs of enrichment material such as straw to enable them to engage in their natural behaviours. Without a welfare label, who is to know that a label that says ‘produce of Spain’ has flesh from a pig raised in horrendous conditions?

British pigs disappearing

While the UK Government introduced higher animal welfare standards for UK farmers by banning sow crates, it failed to protect them in any way from pork raised to lower standards on the continent. So not only has it forced our farmers to cram more animals in their sheds to compete with cheap imports but it has resulted in a great many bankruptcies for farmers who cannot or simply refused to join this race to the bottom in terms of animal welfare. Consequently we have lost almost half of our pig herd in the past twelve years.

The playing field may be somewhat levelled in 2013 when new laws in Europe will limit the time continental sows will spend in crates, but they will still spend 20 weeks of the year in crates, far  longer than their English cousins who spend 10 days in crates at farrowing (giving birth). By the time this legislation comes into force, our pig herds may have dwindled to zero.

The question is how do we protect our more humane pig producers from further bankruptcy and help the others improve? Do we leave it entirely to the market, expecting people confronted with country of origin and method of production labelling and hope the consumer goes for UK labels? Hoping, perhaps, that with secure markets our farmers could raise their method of production to the RSPCA welfare standard of Freedom Food, or better still, free range, outdoor reared or organic?

Is it fair that some people would still continue to buy a product that said ‘Spanish – offspring of a sow in a crate’ if it was much cheaper? And buy one labelled: ‘UK – intensive confinement conditions’ if it was much cheaper? Should it even be an option? Should our caterers and procurers be allowed to buy the cheapest EU and UK low welfare products and supply them to consumers who have no choice, such as school children or hospital patients?

Led by chickens

I would like to see us go down the same road as legislation on battery hens. Since people have continued to buy eggs labelled as coming from battery hens, environment secretary Hilary Benn has demanded an EU ban on battery hens. And if any country produces battery hens, they cannot be exported out of the producer country.

Why not do this with pig meat: a ban on the import of pig meat that has been produced to lower standards than our sow stall ban? And every time we increase the standards, i.e. up to Freedom Food standard, the imports must conform.

The idea is not fanciful; David Cameron has proposed a similar one when interviewed for my film, Pig Business:
‘Just as we don’t accept cars that aren’t meeting our emission standards, so we shouldn’t accept food that doesn’t meet our welfare standards.’

Sadly, at the Oxford Farming Conference, Cameron’s environment minister, Nick Herbert, put the free trade agenda first:
‘I do believe in free trade and free markets and the power of consumer choice and I think you have to intervene in those markets with care,’ he said.

On the contrary, intervening in the free market is necessary. If your country’s animal welfare standards are higher; if you want to protect the health of your nation from the myriad human health impacts of factory farming; if your food security is, as an island state, threatened by cheaper imports, then I believe intervention is necessary and justified.

Consumer power

Changes of legislation and labelling will, of course, be slow. But changes in our buying habits need not be. In a nut shell, we must avoid any unlabelled meat in the supermarket and shop and, if possible, go direct to the farmer at the farmers’ market or via the internet. Consumer power can protect our pigs, health, farmers and democracy.

As Robert Kennedy says in my film:
‘There is no single magic bullet for solving the great problem that we face now. You have to use all of the tools of activism that Martin Luther King talked about, which is litigation, legislation and agitation. Part of the puzzle is that people buy locally. That is a very potent form of activism – to say to the Walmarts of this world, we are not going to buy from you, we are going to buy in the local farmers’ market.’

One of the big arguments thrown at organic and ethical food is that it’s too expensive and acts merely to distinguish the wealthy from the junk-scoffing hordes.

Organic is certainly more pricey, but it is not just the wealthy who buy it and nor is it just those on lower incomes who buy junk. But the argument isn’t about class and organic food and it’s not about whether organic food is too expensive. It’s about cheap meat being the most costly meat ever produced and it’s about how much we as a society truely value our food and where it comes from.

Organic meat costs more because it takes account of the environment, it takes account of animal welfare and it produces good quality meat that we should pay a good price for. Cheap meat, (which most of the time you cannot even call food let alone meat), is produced regardless of the impacts on our health and on the environment. It is produced for money, in the pursuit of maximizing efficiency and to live by the code of fatter, bigger, faster, cheaper.

It is efficiency gone mad, demonstrated in factory farming.  Indeed what could be more efficient than thousands of animals packed into the smallest spaces possible, barely seeing the outside (if at all), fed unnatural diets, filled with antibiotics and treated like factory equipment.  An interesting definition of efficiency and a ridiculous idea of progress,  where the real massive costs are borne by the animals in their confinement, the environment in its degradation, and the population in its increasing risk to health.

The example of Asda’s 2p sausage is a case in point. Put on the shelves to help families in the credit crunch, Asda were seemingly trying to do us all a favour. It’s typical however, of the short term quick fixes we think have benefits to our society, when in fact eating less meat and buying more vegetables instead would probably have done people more good and certainly would have been more beneficial for the planet.

But it goes deeper than this, into our very culture and way of life. We now take food for granted as abundant and ever present.  The 2007 Family Expenditure Survey showed spending on food and non-alcoholic drinks has dropped sharply from 33% of a weekly household budget in 1957 to just 15% in 2007. Proportionally therefore people are spending less of their income on food.

Obviously many of us now have more disposable income than in 1957, which we have used to enrich our lives and have a better standard of living. We spend more on leisure and have a greater choice of ’stuff’ to choose from than ever before. And yet when it comes to food consumption we seem to have gone backwards. Buying too much of the wrong thing, such as snacks and fast food and adding to other related problems of health and wellbeing.

DEFRA figures show that over the past three decades our consumption for uncooked meats has remained relatively unchanged in terms of grams per person per week, but meat in ready made meals and convenience meat has more than trebled since the early 1970s. Arguably we eat more now out of sheer speed and convenience than we ever have done. By making food as cheap as possible and as fast as possible we have devalued it.  Much of the enjoyment and social family time element to eating has been removed.  For many it seems mealtime has become a part of the day which gets in the way of our lives and our culture of overworking.

We just don’t seem to have time and don’t value the very thing we consume the most.

Because we don’t value it, we don’t value our farmers either.  Supermakets are obsessed with providing cheap food which, more often than not, comes at the expense of farmers who are held over a barrel. Intensive farming then often becomes the only economically advantageous way to farm, getting the maximum amount of meat from every animal in the shortest time possible. Animals are farmed indoors, and the traditional image of the farm is dying to the extent where we have become ignorant about the food we eat. A recent survey of UK teenagers for instance showed 26% thought bacon came from sheep and 29% thought oats grow on trees. What’s the bet the same teenagers could tell you where their nearest MacDonalds is? Food has become uninteresting and a chore for many people. I mean why cook when you can put a ready-meal in the microwave? The joy and appreciation of food has been lost by many, reserved for special occasions. Only then are we willing to pay a little extra.

Shouldn’t we instead place more value on the very thing we consume the most? Shouldn’t supermarkets and farmers be adding value to their meat rather than taking it away? I’m not saying all meat should be ridiculously priced and nor am I saying this has to translate into buying less food. It’s about buying smarter, healthier, and better. Local butchers often have good quality meat at fair prices, box schemes are not always as pricey as you might think and eating a few more vegetable based meals never hurt anyone. In fact will be good for us and good for the planet, if only we could stop and think about it….

First aired on Swiss TV in December 2009, H1N1: Why did it strike the Mexicans first? is a documentary that cuts straight to heart of the huge costs involved in producing cheap meat.

The programme focuses on explaining why La Gloria,  a Mexican village with 3000 inhabitants, was the birthplace to the global pandemic of  H1N1 swine flu and looks at the situation there now. The exact origins, as is well known, are traceable to intensive pig farming operations which are a prominent feature of the area  (one is about five miles from La Gloria) and are mostly subsidiaries of Smithfield Foods.

Pig farms such as these, the film reveals, house 90,000-100,000 pigs and in an area roughly the size of Switzerland the number of pigs reaches a staggering 5 to 6 million! It was in these industrial units where swine flu originated and it’s no coincidence that the virus has been traced back to pig farms in North Carolina which also happen to be owned by Smithfield. The impacts of these type of farming operations are clear for all to see. Footage shows piles of dead pigs which are dumped in pits and left to rot. It shows the threat of these ‘farms’ to the Mexican workers health and to local residents lives through the contamination and poisoning of the air and water.

Like Pig Business, what is really overwhelming are the huge negative effects on the local people, a consequence of producing the cheapest meat possible for U.S. consumers. Even worse is the corruption and physical brutality involved in setting up these factory farms and keeping them running, to the benefit of large companies such as Smithfield and complete absence of benefit to locals even in terms of jobs.

After looking at how industrial pig feed is also implicated in the formation and spread of disease, the documentary finally looks at Mexico City which with 22 million people is ideal for the creation of deadly viruses and only a few hours away from major cities around the world.

With this mind factory farming could well become a lot more than just a huge problem for the communities which surround them, it will as the film suggests become ‘everyone’s problem’.

See the documentary online here.

With 2 weeks to go until Pig Business: Time for Change, our event at the House of Commons, I just wanted to thank everyone who has written to their MP and shown a real demand for change. Your efforts are working. 25 MPs are attending our event on the 27th January and joining a whole host of people from NGOs, supermarkets, caterers, farmers and celebrity chefs.

It’s a chance to for them to hear about the negative impacts of factory farming and listen to experts ranging from organic farmers to epidemiologists. The swine flu outbreak is our warning that industrial farming practices are not just damaging our environment but also endangering our health. It’s a warning we should not ignore.

Action is required from all sides, from the government setting standards, to the supermarkets being transparent, to consumers thinking more about the meat they buy. We not only hope to start a conversation about making positive progress towards more sustainable pig farming but want to start action too.

Words about possible, potential action sometime in the future are not good enough. Voices of dissent about the way we raise, treat and source our pork are starting to be heard.

They all seem to be saying it’s time for change.

PS    Still not too late still to write to your MP