Food Authority seeks farm details after secret pig-farm footage

Finland’s Food Authority has asked animal rights organisation Vera to identify farms shown in secretly filmed footage, Yle reports. The images and videos show dead piglets, heavily soiled pigs and workers kicking animals and using electric prods to move them.

Vera, a newly launched animal rights organisation, published the material from pig farms around Finland. Yle said it is publishing the images because of their societal significance and because they show animal welfare problems that are also recognised within the industry.

The photos and video came from three farms. Yle verified the locations using metadata from the photographs and identifiable details in the video and other material provided by Vera.

Yle contacted the operators of two of the farms, but they did not want to comment. The people responsible for the third farm did not respond to calls or messages. Yle is not identifying the farms in more detail because, according to its information, police had not opened criminal investigations into them when the material was published.

Vera representative Mette Rönnberg said the organisation did not intend to single out individual farms.

“We think it is important for people to see the conditions in which Finnish pigs live. People’s perceptions must not be based only on the picture painted by producers and advertising agencies,” Rönnberg said.

Food Authority requests farm names

The Food Authority’s state and municipal veterinarians supervise pig farms in Finland. Special Adviser Terhi Jääskeläinen said the images showed improper treatment of animals and keeping conditions that might not meet legal requirements.

The authority has asked Vera to provide the names of the farms either to the Food Authority or to local animal welfare authorities so that inspections can be carried out. The farms will not be notified in advance of an inspection.

Professor questions the level of dirt

Anna Valros, a professor of animal welfare science at the University of Helsinki, said some of what appeared in the footage was typical of pig farms, but not all of it.

Piglets can die during birth or become trapped between a concrete floor and their mother. Such deaths are not always noticed immediately because sows often give birth at night, Valros said.

She paid particular attention to the amount of excrement visible in the material. Valros said pigs are clean animals that generally avoid soiling themselves, but they may wallow in excrement if they have no other way to cool down.

“This is rarely seen, and it should not be like this,” Valros said.

She also drew attention to a video showing pigs being directed to move by kicking them and using an electric prod even when they were unable to move.

The industry has also been the subject of public discussion because African swine fever was detected in Finland in July. However, the farms shown in the footage are not located in the affected area.

The chair of Finnish Pig Entrepreneurs, Timo Heikkilä, said piglet mortality was one of the industry’s challenges.