Investigation: Animal Equality exposes pig farm in Italy
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 farm owners have been reported to the authorities.
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.
The investigators found that the thousands of pigs living on the farm were 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
In Italy, more than 8 million pigs are bred annually in intensive factory farms, with almost 4 million in Lombardy alone. Of those, more than 500,000 female pigs are forced to spend nearly all their life between the bars of cages without the ability to move or look after their children.
“Thanks to our investigation and 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.
Along with the launch of the investigation, a petition was started and addressed to the Minister of Agricultural Policies, Gian Marco Centinaio, and the Minister of Health, Giulia Grillo. It asked to close this farm and for more general oversight of factory farms.
