Farms Not Factories • The Campaign to End Factory Farming

The campaign to end factory farming

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Campaigns & Videos

COVID-19 Farming Impact

Interviews with industry experts & farmers about the impact of COVID-19 on high welfare farmers and food systems.

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High Street Survey | #PigsInChains

Three-quarters of the high street supermarkets & food chains we surveyed sell pork from factory farms.

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Pig Business – The Full Tail

An uncensored version of Pig Business is released as US pork giant Smithfield Foods (featured) slaughters 10,000 pigs in Poland.

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Let’s end factory farming

We believe that the factory farming of any species is wrong, but specifically focus on pigs in order to raise awareness where there is currently insufficient public knowledge. Factory pig farms can be defined as “indoor facilities in which overcrowding and lack of bedding means that animals suffer stress and disease, are prone to tail biting and have to be routinely given antibiotics”.

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Guide to Pork Labelling

High Welfare Labels

Organic

These pigs can roam freely between outdoors and shelter their entire lives. They are happy & healthy. The ‘Soil Association Organic Standard’ is one of only a few schemes that chooses to “set it’s standards even higher than the minimum EU organic requirements”.

Free Range

These pigs are free to roam and express their natural instinctive behaviours such as rooting, nesting and playing. These pigs are healthier & happier and don’t require regular antibiotics.

RSPCA Assured + Outdoor Bred/Reared

Breeding sows are free range their whole lives. The piglets are free-range until weaning, when they are moved indoors. Fattening pigs are kept in light and airy straw-based systems.

Improved Welfare Labels

RSPCA Assured

This scheme covers both indoor and outdoor rearing systems. Pigs that are kept permanently indoors have more space and are provided with material such as straw to root around in.

Outdoor Reared

Breeding sows are free range their whole lives. The piglets are free-range until weaning, when they are moved indoors. The fattening pigs are more likely to be kept in light and airy straw-based systems.

Outdoor Bred

Breeding sows are free range for their whole lives. The piglets are free-range until weaning, when they are moved indoors. Fattening pigs are likely to be kept in intensive systems unless the RSPCA Assured logo is present as well.

Low Welfare Labels

Red Tractor

Red Tractor allows for intensive production and is not a ‘guarantee’ of good animal welfare. Pigs can be confined in intensive, indoor facilities, often on bare concrete for the entire lives. Breeding sows are confined in cages for up to 2.5 months/year.

Standard UK

Minimum UK Standard legal requirements allow for intensive production. Pigs are likely to be confined in intensive, indoor facilities, often on bare concrete for the entire lives. Breeding sows are confined in cages for up to 2.5 months/year.

Standard EU

Will almost certainly have come from an intensive factory farm. Breeding sows can be confined in cages for up to 4.5 months/year. Fattening pigs are kept permanently indoors on slatted floors with no bedding.

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“Use the power of your purse to only buy from real farms, not animal factories. When buying pork, look for the high welfare labels RSPCA Assured, Free Range or best of all Organic. Go direct to the farmer via farmers’ markets, online or local box schemes.”

Tracy Worcester Director, Farms Not Factories
Pork Labelling Guide High Welfare Directory

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