INVESTIGATION: The Cruel Impact of Italy’s Buffalo Mozzarella Production

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what you are seeing and what is
hidden behind the word excellence is
how they call the
buffalo mozzarella of Campania DOP
but the story behind
this product is very different every
year in Italy almost
half a million buffaloes and buffalo calves are raised
animals forced to live in
terrible conditions to produce mozzarella milk
and cheeses that will then be sold both
in Italy and abroad as the excellence
of Made in Italy
our investigators have entered
some farms in northern Italy to
document the life of the buffaloes a
miserable reality marked by
exhausting production rhythms in aseptic
dilapidated places and without any respect for
their needs and natural needs even
today in these farms thousands of
male buffaloes are brutally
killed as if they were waste left to
die of hunger and thirst
others instead are torn from their
mothers and sent to the slaughterhouse
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we have investigated further
also collecting images shot in
Campania and the testimonies of those who have
encountered these realities first hand
this is the true face of
buffalo mozzarella
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when I was a member of parliament in the last
legislature, citizens reported to me
cases of mistreatment or
environmental pollution resulting from these
buffalo farms,
one of the main problems of
buffalo farms is the killing of
male buffalo. Male buffalo
obviously have no market because
raising a buffalo compared to, for example,
a buffalo calf takes twice as
long, it grows, therefore the cost is double,
maintaining it is forced, plus
taking it to the slaughterhouse always has a cost
because both the cost of transport and the
cost of killing this buffalo,
buffalo meat has no type of
economic value, so the elevator says, I'd
rather let the male buffalo die, I
don't give it the award, eat it, the
mother pushes it away, I keep it
outside the farm, let's leave them in the states or if stray dogs arrive, they eat it, better for me the live session I began to investigate buffalo farms after I saw a video on YouTube that I had accidentally come across, we went to the Caserta area, which is a
very difficult province, and we
decided to see if we would
actually find carcasses on the land It
took 1 hour to find the buffalo carcass and
immediately the investigator she had
gone with called me to tell me that he had
found the carcass of a buffalo calf
thrown there. We went with the
camera immediately to film it.
The breeder came to us and in a
threatening manner explained to us that that is
their way of doing things and that is, since the
buffalo calf does not give anything, the only thing
you can do with that animal is
kill it, therefore horrible deaths, very
serious violations of the
legislation related to
animal welfare and also in our
penal code because it is evident that
we are in a case of
cruel and unnecessary killing.
Unfortunately, however, there is no
specific law and all the buffaloes and buffalo calves
exist only the authorities responsible for
controls and the generic laws against
mistreatment and abuse of
animals
and the controls themselves should be
carried out by competent veterinarians and
by the local health authorities but as the
images collected by our
investigators show, here too there is a lot of work
to be done.
We found animals in
terrible hygienic and sanitary conditions immersed in
feces and mud,
many buffaloes had the Hooves
grown out of proportion due to
lack of medical care. This is a
very serious form of neglect that causes
lameness and injuries to the animals, who are
unable to walk or
move properly. Our
cameras have also captured workers
administering drugs to the animals without
any authorization and without the
supervision of a veterinarian.
There is a huge lack of
controls by the authorities.
It would be enough to go and check the
product arriving at the dairies. It would be enough to
simply carry out the checks. It would be enough to do as we
did. We simply took
a tour of the
Caserta countryside behind Casal di Principe,
behind Villa Literno, and we discovered
buffalo carcasses. We were
able to see them, and the authorities. There is no
lack of courage on the part of
these veterinarians. Furthermore, there is the
contradiction of the fact that they are
the inspectors, that is, in their
control of this farm, arriving
there with the police. I ask them
to inspect their own work, the
work of their colleagues. They will never go
against their own
work, the work of their colleagues, because then
they could also suffer mobbing from
the same health authority.
The problem is that these veterinarians
are publicly selected and then remain in
that area for many years,
cultivating their knowledge and therefore there is no
territorial rotation. If there
were territorial action like
the Carabinieri, for example,
if every 5 or 6 years these veterinarians
changed their territory,
perhaps the situation could change.
Perhaps more and more frequently, we are
moving towards self-control systems
in which there
are very few public veterinarians responsible for inspections and all
livestock activities are under the
responsibility of what is
called the farm doctor, the
company veterinarian. Therefore, it is
a bit like asking the
inspector to inspect himself because the
veterinarian who works on the company is
then up to his intellectual honesty
to verify that
all the activities are actually followed as they
should be carried out, unlike
what they tell us that
Italian inspections are the best in the world.
I have even heard this said. Well,
then I wonder what is going on in the world. It is
obvious since these are
random inspections and
unfortunately we often say that these
training sessions are pre-alerted before the
inspections.
Many times, the situation that is
found by
animal rights associations during their risk
inspections is not then found.
even from the competent authorities
perhaps because it also gives them a way to
sweep the dust under the carpet a bit.
We need more specializations,
not only in Jewish axes, the
veterinary police specialized in breeding,
in the veterinary police specialized
in about
kennels, we need more specialization
and more people, in my opinion the funds are there,
a political choice is needed and it is an
important political choice also
to combat another of the
most worrying aspects of these farms:
the impact they have on our environment
and on the surrounding area. It is a
stream of sewage, so it will succeed. At the
legal level,
the environment is protected more than the welfare of the
animals,
that is, in some cases the seizure of the
farms occurred because they are in settling
tanks that
were not working or were not there at all
and the sewage was poured directly
onto the land and the legal commissioner therefore
created environmental pollution.
The problem with sewage spills
is that these
then end up in the
aquifer or directly in
the streams that are
formed unnaturally, as they end up in
As I have found in some of
my expressions, this problem
from the point of view of human health is
very, very serious because
these substances then infiltrate
the aquifer and therefore
also end up in the water that the people
of that area drink. During
my investigations,
I participated in raids by the
police and several farms
were seized because
there were sewage spills on the
land. Several farms were not
exactly in compliance with the
sewage tanks that must contain the
buffalo sewage and were simply
spilled on the land and then ended up
in the aquifer.
I think that today we are in a very
favorable historical moment. Today people
have an environmental awareness and
also a new
animal rights awareness so they want their
diet to respect their new
awareness
today so when it comes to making known
what the true production of our
products is, changing one's habits is
the most difficult thing there is, but today
more than ever this process is
happening environmental impact cruelty
to animals and no
effective control what we have documented
reveals all the limits. of the much vaunted
Italian system, but we as consumers
and as citizens can do a lot to
put an end to all this.
If the industry had nothing to
hide,
it could simply broadcast
the
truth of their production system in its numerous advertisements,
thus bringing cameras
inside their
intensive farms to show the final consumer
how the animals that
produce their products are raised. Because this is
not done, because we see
chickens on the grass, pigs rooting or
bach grazing. Because this is
the image they want to give to the
consumer. It is a
totally false image because today,
over 90 percent of the products of
animal origin that are sold here in
Italy are produced inside
intensive farms. Therefore, if
the industry had nothing to
hide, it could simply
show how it produces. The point is that
excellence would also need to be
measured against quantity
when it comes to producing a lot. It is
clear that the needs for quantity
depress other
characteristics, including the
condition of the intentions of animal breeding.
We are talking about sentient beings, they
are not things, and it is the Lisbon Treaty itself that
establishes in its article 13
which are precisely beings that feel,
therefore it means that they experience
feelings and we must
apply this treaty which is
true in our constitution there is no such
recognition but
European recognition so it concerns
all of us closely. Let's try to
be proactive in this sense to fight
this battle of
our civilization. These are the stories of the
buffaloes and the buffalo calves raised in Italy.
These are the words of those who have seen
firsthand what really happens
in these places.
More effective controls are needed.
Specific laws are needed for the protection of these
animals and concrete actions are needed
from the institutions to protect
animals, the territory and public health. But
now it is also up to us to do everything
in our power to stop these
cruelties.
Don't feed this market of
suffering. Help us too. Don't
consume these products and spread
this video. Everyone needs to know.
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