INVESTIGATION: Animal Equality Reveals Truth Behind Italy’s Pig Farms

Animal Equality Italy, in collaboration with the country’s national media outlet, Tg2, has published a new investigation exposing atrocities inside a pig farm in Northern Italy. As a result of the investigation, the owners of the farm have been reported to the authorities.

THE DETAILS: For four months between February and April 2019, our investigation team, along with Tg2 journalist and host Piergiorgio Giacovazzo, visited a pig farm in the Northern Italian region of Lombardy. Despite the region’s animal welfare laws, the investigators found that the thousands of pigs living on the farm were being subjected to distressing and shocking conditions. Among the cruelty witnessed, our investigators found:

• Dead bodies of piglets abandoned in the corridors
• Decomposing and mummified bodies of pigs
• A worker who kills a pig by throwing it against the wall
• Pigs forced into cages that are too small, covered with wounds and with bedsores
• Animals piled up and forced to live in overcrowded conditions
• Pigs covered in feces and urine
• Feeders full of feces
• An operator who urinates in the middle of the fences
• Infestations of cockroaches, mice and worms

DID YOU KNOW?: In Italy, there are more than 8 million pigs bred every year in intensive factory farms, with almost 4 million in Lombardy alone. Of those, more than 500,000 female pigs are forced to spend almost all their life between the bars of cages without the ability to move or look after their children.

WHAT WE’RE SAYING: “Thanks to our investigation and to Tg2, the horrors on farms have been clearly revealed and now the authorities must take responsibility and respond adequately. We must move promptly to close farms like this one which causes immense suffering to animals. We have reported this farm and will follow the story closely,” says Matteo Cupi, Executive Director of Animal Equality Italy.

WHAT WE ARE DOING: Along with the launch of the investigation, a petition was started and addressed to the Minister of Agricultural Policies Gian Marco Centinaio and to the Minister of Health Giulia Grillo asking to close this farm and also for more oversight of factory farms in general. Once again our investigative work has exposed the immense cruelty and suffering on factory farms and destroys the idyllic image often shown by farmers and in companies’ branding and marketing. We need your support to continue to reveal these abuses – please consider a donation today that will impact the lives of millions of animals

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