TURN YOUR NOSE UP AT PIG FACTORIES


TURN YOUR NOSE UP AT PIG FACTORIES

Dominic West, Rupert Everett, Jon Snow, Jeremy Irons and Vivienne Westwood are some of the high profile talent that appear in a new 2-­minute campaign video which exposes the barbaric truth of pig factories, and in doing so, moves many of the celebrities to tears. The video captures their reactions to the horrific footage of pigs suffering in intensive rearing units, which have come to be dubbed ‘factories’.

The ‘Turn Your Nose Up’ campaign has been created in light of new information that pig factories threaten our health. These factories are cramming pigs into such horrendous conditions that they need to be routinely dosed with antibiotics just to keep them alive, leading to ‘superbugs’ ­ human diseases that are difficult to treat because they have become resistant to antibiotics.

To help raise awareness of the campaign and encourage people to only buy high welfare pork, the video asks the public to show their support by posting a selfie turning their nose up on social media with the hashtag #TurnYourNoseUp​. The campaign has already garnered the support of 65 high profile figures from the world of music, acting, food and design. They include: Sting, Zac Goldsmith, Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley­Whittingstall, Stella and Paul McCartney, Hugh Grant, Lily Allen and the likes of Moby, Stephen Fry, Jo Wood, Joanna Lumley, Roger Moore, Jools Holland, Lucy Watson ​will be ​posting selfies turning their noses up online on the 12th May launch day.

Fashion photographer, Clive Arrowsmith has also produced a series of powerful portrait photographs, while renowned fashion designer and campaigner Dame Vivienne Westwood has designed a limited edition T­Shirt that debuted on the runway at Milan Fashion Week. The T­shirt costs £30 with 75% of the sale price going to Farms Not Factories’ work. The T­shirts can be purchased at: www.farmsnotfactories.org/shop/

Tracy Worcester, founder of Farms Not Factories says, “Our message is simple, we want to help bring an end to this dangerous, inhumane system and encourage the public to only buy pork from high welfare farms. Vote for real farming over factory farming by buying pork with the labels RSPCA Assured, Outdoor Bred, Free Range or best of all, Organic.

The campaign is supported by high profile NGO partners Compassion in World Farming Soil Association Eating Better Antibiotic Action and Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics.

For all media enquiries, stills and video footage, please contact Farms Not Factories
info@farmsnotfactories.org – ​​0207 584 6592
For interviews contact Tracy Worcester
Tracy@tracyworcester.org.uk ​​- 0207 584 6592

High resolution images & campaign material available – ​download here


Notes to Editors:
1. The full line­up of celebrities in the 2­minute video and/or Clive Arrowsmith portraits: Dominic West, Miranda Richardson, Jon Snow, Jeremy Irons, Simon King, Leslie Ash, Sadie Frost, Rupert Everett, Mark Hix, Vivienne Westwood, Helen McCrory and Richard E Grant.
2. The current line up of celebrities who have taken and agreed to post selfies on social media on 12 May: Vivienne Westwood, Stephen Fry, Lucy Watson, Sting and Trudie Styler, Rupert Everett, Rachel Ward, Valentine Warner, Sadie Frost, Moby, Cyril Nri, Joanna Lumley, Leslie Ash, Jools Holland, Helen McCrory, Allegra McEvedy, Ben Goldsmith, Simon King, Dominic West, Jo Wood, Sam Neill, John Sauven, Roger Moore, Bryan Brown, Richard E Grant, Miranda Richardson, Mark Hix, Jane Goodall.
3. Farms Not Factories was born when giant US pork producer Smithfield Foods threatened to sue Channel 4 if they dared to show Tracy Worcester’s documentary, Pig Business, exposing the animal abuse, uncontrolled use of antibiotics, environmental pollution and corruption in the global factory pork industry. After a year of legal wrangling, the film was shown and Smithfield backed down.
4. Pig factories are large intensive, indoor, industrial facilities in which pigs are usually kept on barren concrete floors. In the UK, for 2.5 months of the year mother pigs are kept in narrow metal cages in which they are unable to turn around. And despite the so­called ban on sow stalls in the EU, it is still legal in many EU countries to keep her in a narrow cage for 4.5 months of the year. Piglets are taken from their mothers after just 21 days when their immune system is still very weak. Overcrowding and lack of bedding mean the animals suffer stress and disease, so are prone to tail biting and have to be routinely given antibiotics. This routine use of antibiotics leads to superbugs ­ antibiotic resistant diseases that can pass to humans thus hastening the end of antibiotics as a cure for human diseases.
5. About 45% of antibiotics used in the UK are used in animals.
6. Antibiotic use in food animals – for treatment, disease prevention or growth promotion – allows resistant bacteria and resistance genes to spread from food animals to humans through the food chain. World Health Organization Report
7. For some major human bacterial infections, such as Salmonella and Campylobacter, farm animals are the most important source of antimicrobial resistance. Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics Briefing
8. For certain other human infections, such as E. coli and enterococci, there is strong evidence that farm animals are an important source of antibiotic resistance. Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics Briefing
9. “Every inappropriate use of antibiotics in animals is potentially signing a death warrant for a future patient.” Sir Liam Donaldson, former Chief Medical Officer. Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics Briefing
10. “Worldwide, the fact that greater quantities of antibiotics are used in healthy animals than in unhealthy humans is a cause for great concern.” Doctor Margaret Chan, Director­General of the World Health Organization (Speeches)
11. Farms Not Factories believes our food should have a better story. Pigs on high welfare farms, either outdoors or indoors with plenty of space and straw bedding, are healthy and happy and do not need antibiotics. They are free to roam and express their natural instinctive behaviour such as rooting, nesting and playing.
12. The UK imports 54% of its pork and 70% of these imports are raised in welfare standards that are illegal in the UK. UK farmers without a high welfare label are losing up to £10 on every pig because they have to compete with cheap imports from factory farms abroad. UK pig farmers are not being paid fairly for the valuable work they do. As the National Pig Association has said, “Without the support of the rest of the food­chain, serious contraction in the national pig herd is inevitable. This will mean even more imports of lower­welfare pork in future.”
13. On 8 December 2015 the UK government’s Review on Antimicrobial Resistance identified the over­use of antibiotics in intensive livestock production as a major cause of the emergence and spread of antibiotic­resistant human diseases.
14. 10 March 2016: MEPs advocate banning collective and preventive antibiotic treatment of animals. The EU Parliament voted to support draft plans to fight the growing resistance of bacteria to today’s antibiotics by restricting the use of existing antimicrobial drugs. In a vote on draft plans to update an EU law on veterinary medicines, MEPs advocate banning collective and preventive antibiotic treatment of animals, and back measures to stimulate research into new medicines.
15. 22 March 2016: Tesco and Aldi are giving fictional farm names to their range of basic UK products. The Guardian. One of their fictional names used by Tesco, Woodside Farm, turns out to be a real pig farm in Ireland with much higher animal welfare standards than the Tesco products.
16. 11 April 2016: A $1 trillion coalition of 54 institutional investors, including Aviva Investors, Natixis Asset Management, ACTIAM, Mirova, Coller Capital and Strathclyde Pension Fund, has launched an engagement campaign with ten of the biggest US and UK restaurant chains, to call for an end to non­therapeutic use of antibiotics important to human health in their global meat and poultry supply chains.
17. The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and Antibiotic Action will jointly release their Position Statement on the use of antibiotic medication in animals on 12 May

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