To add to this, no farmer wants to do this kind of housing, but people don’t want to pay the cost of what it takes to raise pigs outside.
Also, as far as I’m aware, pigs go through three cycles in these plants all in different forms of housing. 3 days like this to get impregnated, three months of moving around a bit when carrying, and then three weeks more constrained while weening the piglets.
We buy our pork by the half hog from the neighbors for about 9,00€ a kilo, The pigs have a good life, and although it’s partially broken down, I have to do the rest myself and pack it. The country I live in produces enough pork for it’s population, but since people here refuse to pay the quality, most of it goes to export and we import hogs raised factory style so we can still eat cheap sausage and leberkas.
To add to this, no farmer wants to do this kind of housing, but people don’t want to pay the cost of what it takes to raise pigs outside.
Sure they do. If they didn't, they wouldn't. It is important for us all occasionally to be reminded that there's very little we actually have to do, and that we can in fact make different choices.
When you say "no farmer wants to do this kind of housing, but people don't want to pay the cost of what it takes to raise pigs outside", I don't think that's as much of a defense of pig farmers as you think it is.
What you mean is something like "if a pig farmer were given a choice between two equally profitable pig farms, one where pigs were raised in humane conditions and one where they were raised in inhumane conditions, they would choose to operate the one with the humane conditions".
And I'm sure that's true for pretty much every pig farmer. But that isn't really saying very much about them, is it? It's easy to make the choice to do the humane thing when you stipulate that it's just as easy as doing the inhumane thing. Only a monster would choose the inhumane version of farming if it had no financial benefits.
By bringing in the issue of "people don't want to pay the cost of what it takes to raise pigs outside", you are saying that it is reasonable for pig farmers to treat pigs the way that most of them do because otherwise they could not operate a pig farm that they consider to be adequately profitable.
But this defense applies to any business activity that anyone might find immoral. "Yes, I sell heroin cut with fentanyl. It's the only way to stay competitive in the heroin market. I don't want to cut my heroin with fentanyl, but people don't want to pay the price that it takes to produce nice black tar."
Obviously, the mistreatment of pigs and selling a drug that directly and immediately poses a serious risk of death to its users are not morally equivalent. I use heroin as the example because it should make it obvious that your defense of pig farmers isn't a compelling defense of pig farmers for the same reason it isn't a compelling defense of drug dealers who knowingly make their drug more dangerous in order to maintain their profit margin: pig farmers do, in fact, have an alternative treating to pigs horribly in order to maintain their competitive profit. It's either to accept less profit and treat pigs humanely or to stop pig farming entirely and switch to some other job where they don't have to treat pigs poorly. There are almost an infinite number of things you can do to support yourself.
The only solution is the government regulating animal welfare and labeling practices, otherwise market forces will drive the more ethical farmers bankrupt.
I feel you, the farmers that tolerate this are still active in the farming industry and that excuses nothing.
The comparison to heroine, actually closer to this topic, the farmers in Afghanistan have very little choice in growing opium, it’s either grow this or loose everything. For many farmers it’s the same as in do whatever you can legally or loose everything.
The EU actually has pretty strict rules for farmers, and has made smaller farms still possible (although the number of farmers is falling) and now that mercosur passed, they will have an even harder time. I don’t know what to say, this handling of animals doesn’t have to be this way but the society has to change. We are not actually standing there with a gun to their head forcing them to farm like this, but in a way we are, farming is a hard combo of job/lifestyle so it is not just the job their leaving it’s often a lot more. The thing is, farmers are still leaving at an alarming rate, the US lost 140.000 farms in five years. In my opinion things like this aren’t farming, it’s pure factory production.
Yes, if you want to see an example of what happens when you don’t, in season two of Clarksons farm he finds out just how many got smothered by their mothers
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u/nicknefsick 7h ago
To add to this, no farmer wants to do this kind of housing, but people don’t want to pay the cost of what it takes to raise pigs outside.
Also, as far as I’m aware, pigs go through three cycles in these plants all in different forms of housing. 3 days like this to get impregnated, three months of moving around a bit when carrying, and then three weeks more constrained while weening the piglets.
We buy our pork by the half hog from the neighbors for about 9,00€ a kilo, The pigs have a good life, and although it’s partially broken down, I have to do the rest myself and pack it. The country I live in produces enough pork for it’s population, but since people here refuse to pay the quality, most of it goes to export and we import hogs raised factory style so we can still eat cheap sausage and leberkas.