|
11 June 2002
A year of Undercover Footage Reveals Factory Farming Horrors
Undercover investigators for animal welfare group Viva! have
spent a year filming on numerous factory farms throughout
the UK and discovered shocking conditions on every farm. The
release of Viva!’s footage marks the run up to a national
march and rally against factory farming that they and other
welfare groups are staging in London on July 13.
Viva!’s footage covers many different types of farms:
pig, broiler chickens, turkeys, battery hen, and intensive
duck units. Some of the farms are suppliers to the biggest
names in meat produce, including Grampian Country Foods, Bernard
Matthews, Kerry Foods and an RSPCA Freedom Foods farm. Counties
filmed in included East and West Sussex, Cornwall, Devon,
Essex, Suffolk, Merseyside and Cheshire.
Says Viva! campaigner Kat Macmillan, “The factory farmed
pigs, chickens, turkeys and ducks in the farms we have filmed
on are in a living hell. Take Rynehill pig farm in Oxon. Pigs
are kept in overcrowded pens, covered in their own excreta.
Many animals are lame or sick. Despite these conditions, meat
from Rynehill carries the quality assurance stamp, Farm Assured
British Pigs. It’s a joke!”
At a Grampian chicken farm in East Sussex, Viva! investigators
discovered dead and rotting chickens piled up outside the
sheds. Inside, they found dead and dying birds being trampled
on and pecked by living ones. Some birds were so severely
deformed that they were unable to stand or walk and could
not reach the food or water points. Grampian supplies most
major supermarkets.
“It’s not just the animals who suffer as a result
of the cruel conditions on Britain’s farms - dangerous
diseases are spreading like wildfire. Over the past decade,
we’ve seen BSE, swine fever, the creation of antibiotic
resistant strains of salmonella and E. Coli and foot-and-mouth.
If we don’t act now to end factory farming, it may well
end us. It really is time to end all this suffering. Viva!
is joining together with other animal groups to stage a national
protest against intensive farming and we urge people to join
us. ”
More information, photos and video footage from Kat Macmillan
or Juliet Gellatley on 0117 944 1000.
Note:
Viva!’s national march and rally against factory farming
will be held on Saturday July 13 at noon at Kennington Park,
London WC1 (nearest tube: Kings Cross). The event is sponsored
by Viva!, CIWF, FAWN, PETA and the Green Party and supported
by Animal Aid, Advocates for Animals, Care for the Wild Defence
Fund, the Jewish Vegetarian Society, the League Against Cruel
Sports, the Vegan Society, Uncaged Campaigns and the Young
Indian Vegetarians. There will also be a Food for Life Festival,
held at the Camden Centre on the same day.
For further information visit: www.factoryfarming.org.uk
|
Campaigns 
