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FAMOUS LAST WORDS


PIG BUSINESS By Tracy Worcester


www.pigbusiness.co.uk


As reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy will be debated in the European Parliament this summer, three MEPs Jose Bové, Dan Jørgensen and Janusz Wojciechowski invited me to screen my documentary Pig Business to inform their colleagues in the EU Parliament and Commission that ‘cheap’ meat would be very expensive if the factory farms were forced to pay the true costs of their production on animals, the environment, human health and rural livelihoods.


surprise the room was packed full with MEPs, European Council and Commission officials, environmental, health and animal welfare NGOs, and international press.


The event followed a ‘winter of discontent’ for pig farmers facing low supermarket prices for pork, high feed costs, a health scandal caused by animal feed contaminated with dioxin, and the recent discovery that flies are spreading antibiotic resistant bacteria from intensive farms to neighbouring urban areas.


MEPs, Dan Jørgensen, Janusz Wojciechowski, Jose Bové, moderator Marek Kryda, and director Pig Business the film, Tracy Worcester, ,at the EU Parliament screening and event, February 9th 2011


Factory pig farm sheds with open lagoon in America


Following the screening and presentations from, a panel of experts, there was a heated discussion that reinforced the film’s findings.


Andrea Gavinelli, Head of the Animal Welfare Unit of the European Commission, said after the event


Delegates question panelists after the Pig Business film screening


Jose Bové, once a farmer himself, has for many years opposed industrial agriculture and, after being arrested for dismantling a McDonalds hamburger outlet that threatened to destroy his local town economy, is now a member of the European Parliament.


As co-host of the European Parliament event in Brussels, Bové insisted we screen the full length version of Pig Business. I was sceptical that busy MEPs and officials would hardly bother to watch an hour long polemic revealing the true costs of factory farming, but to my


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“The screening was a moment of transparency and reflection. It brought a clear message about what is really happening that people don’t know.”


A recent survey found that 50% of consumers across the EU believe that pigs are ‘fairly well treated’ and have no idea of the horrendous conditions suffered by pigs in factory farms.


In a factory farm, pregnant sows live in a crate thier entire life

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