What happens on this farm in Brescia is not a sad exception, but the norm in Italian farms. This is why greater oversight is needed.
Scandals involving intensive farming in our country unfortunately never seem to end. Only days have passed since the speech by new Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who cited animals, nature and the environment as crucial to sustainability and to restoring a fairer relationship with the world that sustains us — yet, as our latest investigation, carried out with Licia Colò and journalist Roberta Spinelli into a farm in Brescia demonstrates, none of this can be separated from the horrors taking place inside these facilities.
For some time, our investigative team monitored the activities of a large pig farm in Lombardy, gathering shocking footage that bears witness to the mistreatment of animals, as well as appalling hygiene conditions and poor management of waste that is hazardous to the environment.
The company under investigation is a significant local operation that confines thousands of pigs and newborn piglets within this farm. A few months ago, we entered the facility with La7's cameras to show hundreds of thousands of people, in prime time, what suffering animals are forced to endure daily in these places.
These conditions are not an exception, but the rule in the food industry: suffering, neglect and an extremely high — and entirely unjustified — mortality rate are the norm on farms across our country. The brutal treatment of animals and the disregard for regulations are due in part to the scarcity of inspections and the ineffective monitoring of farms by Italian institutions.
This is why we have launched a petition focused specifically on the issue of inspections, calling for more effective, frequent and unannounced checks across the entire country, as well as the introduction of closed-circuit cameras in slaughterhouses and farms, as has already been trialled in France and the United Kingdom.
Thanks to the monitoring carried out by our investigators, we were able to establish that the animals confined on the farm were frequently left to fend for themselves: many sick pigs were found outside the pens, lying on the ground, so weak they were unable to stand.
The indifference of the workers is plain from the evidence we gathered: not only are the pigs denied even the most basic veterinary care, but we were also able to document cases of deliberate mistreatment towards them.
The footage clearly shows one of the pigs that had been abandoned in the corridors for several days being brutally dragged outside the farm. Workers tie a noose around its leg and drag it along the rough concrete floor. The pig is unable to move or struggle free; wracked by spasms, it tries to free itself but cannot.
The presence of dead animals throughout the farm — in pens, corridors and the sick bay — is a constant, a sign of the total absence of care and attention given to these animals. Many of the pigs we encountered on the farm have difficulty walking, are visibly suffering and are sometimes completely unable to move on their own.
It is precisely because of these conditions that pigs are very often unable even to reach food and water.
Many companies — and this one is no exception — boast about the care they take over animal nutrition and the production of their own feed; but thanks to the work of our investigators, who gathered evidence to verify the quality of the feed given to the pigs, we know that rodent and pig faeces were present inside the feeding troughs.
Nothing to boast about, then, given that the presence of faeces in feed carries the risk of bacterial proliferation and the possible transmission of diseases through ingestion.
On the farm we found a great many animals with wounds, difficulty walking, infections and cysts. On top of this, there are the appalling sanitary and hygiene conditions in which the farm operates: the facilities are infested with rats, found both alive and dead inside the enclosures themselves. All of this, needless to say, at the expense of the animals' health and that of consumers.
Contrary to what many companies claim on their corporate websites, it is conditions such as these that make the use of antibiotics essential to keeping the animals alive.
This company too declares itself to be antibiotic-free, yet only 1 of the group's more than 40 farms appears to be registered with this designation — and it is certainly not the ones where our investigators worked.
Another aspect that farms make great use of to build a positive image is the development of systems to produce energy from slurry — that is, faeces and other organic waste produced by the animals — which, under Italian and European law, must be carefully managed because it is highly dangerous to the environment.
At the farm we investigated, however, we found slurry being discharged outside the designated tanks, something also confirmed by an ammonia-level test we carried out: the slurry was found to be untreated, and a channel was discovered running from the tanks all the way outside the perimeter fence surrounding the farm.
The discharge of "active" — that is, untreated — slurry, such as the kind in question, is strictly prohibited and can cause serious damage to groundwater aquifers.
Despite all the industry's efforts to advertise its supposedly "utmost care and innovations", this farm forces animals to live in a state of constant suffering, in dilapidated and dirty facilities.
It would appear that the life to which these hundreds of thousands of animals are condemned does not prevent the company from labelling its products with the DOP designation — which, let us recall, is a protection mark awarded by the European Union to foodstuffs whose quality characteristics depend on the territory in which they were produced.
A certificate of excellence that our cameras have not so much as glimpsed in over two years of hard work inside this farm.
Thanks to the extensive investigative work we have carried out, we have gathered sufficient material to report the company to the competent authorities, filing a complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office in Brescia. The company will have to answer to justice and serve as an example to similar businesses that continue to violate the rights of animals forgotten inside the food industry.
The mistreatment of pigs evidenced by the footage gathered by our investigators, the appalling hygiene conditions we found, and the improper management of slurry are not an isolated case, but the norm in intensive farms throughout the country. This happens also — and above all — because of the scarce presence of inspections and the ineffective monitoring of livestock operations by institutions in Italy, which are unable to ensure the protection of animals on farms in accordance with the laws currently in force.
Cases of neglect, compromised health conditions and mortality are found all too often in facilities in northern Italy — a region that is, moreover, the emblem of the highest standards of Made in Italy, both in Italy and worldwide, and in particular for pork-based products.
It is for this very reason that Animal Equality Italia has made public a petition addressed to the Minister of Health and the President of the Council of Ministers regarding the total absence of care and veterinary supervision for the animals at the farm we investigated, and the failure of public authorities to carry out inspections: too often, unannounced, frequent and thorough checks are simply not conducted; too often, atrocities of this kind against animals — sentient beings who should instead be protected as provided for under EU and Italian law — are not truly prevented.
We therefore call on the institutions to introduce more frequent, thorough, unannounced inspections, and the introduction of closed-circuit cameras inside slaughterhouses and farms in Italy.