More hogs, more problems for Manitobans

Letter to the Brandon Sun

I am a first-generation Canadian, born and raised on a Manitoba farm in the 1930s.

I did not take up farming as my livelihood. However, I did learn to recognize that farm life can be extremely rewarding in so many different ways. I also learned to appreciate and realize that water and nature (environment) were to be treated with the utmost respect and courtesy and with a sense of dignity.

Now retired, I, along with so many, have become very concerned and worried how those once-valued principles have deteriorated and crumbled.

Corporations and their investors have taken over, interested only in benefiting from the current unsustainable economic activity. Huge hog producing factories threaten our health, our water and our environment.

Part of the problem is that our economy, our governments and our society does not account for the social and environmental consequences that are being experienced and inflicted upon the communities and our precious water sources.

The rivers of yesterday (in Manitoba) provided a means of transportation, a source of food and clean water. Today, the rivers are regarded, for the most part, as handy and open-air sewers — someplace to dump the leftovers.

All but our most northern and isolated water sources are being affected. Lake Winnipeg, the 10th-largest fresh water lake in the world, has become a huge sewage lagoon and is dying.

Now, the rural people of Manitoba have a common purpose that brings them together to face a shared enemy and the malignant forces of the expansionism of corporations and industries. For the people now have come to realize that the future of our generations is at stake, and the risks cannot be tolerated any longer.

I agree with a competitive and profitable agriculture industry, but never at the expense of our health, our waters and the environment.

Feeding the world with pork and exploiting and destroying our finite resources in the process is just not acceptable. In fact, it is very irresponsible, ignorant and immoral.

It seems to me that Mother Nature is literally screaming about the impact that we are putting on her, yet we think wistfully of what has been lost and dismiss it as “the price of progress.”

It’s about time we started to put moral ethics back into our present-day society. Also, it’s about time we started redefining “progress.”

JOHN FEFCHAK

Virden MB

Hog Watch Manitoba Supports Goals of Convicted Animal Rights Advocates

Big Industry Hiding the Truth

 

Let the Public See How Pigs Are Housed

(Winnipeg July 14,2022) – Hog Watch Manitoba supports the goals of Amy Sorrano and Nick Schafer, convicted animal rights activists. They have asked that cameras be installed in intensive confinement hog barns in order to monitor how pigs are being treated in these huge facilities.

Currently, there is no way for the public or concerned citizens to ensure that pigs are being treated humanely or to even understand how the pigs are being raised.

Entry into the barns is tightly controlled for biosecurity and public relation reasons.

“The hog industry has good reason to keep their barn doors tightly closed” says Vicki Burns, Hog Watch Manitoba Steering committee member, “They know that many of the public would be disgusted by how these animals are forced to live, crammed in with hundreds of animals, above pits of their urine and feces, breathing in toxic gases rising from the manure pits.” 

Hog Watch Manitoba advocates for the industry to shift to more humane conditions for the animals which includes fewer animals housed together and straw-based barns. The manner in which the animals are housed now amounts to institutionalized cruelty because of the lifelong chronic suffering the animals experience, never getting outside, no straw or pasture to root in, tails docked because of being tightly packed in with other pigs, adult female pigs confined in gestation stalls their entire adult lives.

Hog Watch Manitoba does not support criminal activities but efforts to show the public how pigs are kept is essential to shifting consumers and the industry away from factory raised pork.

“ If the public knew the facts, as consumers they may make different purchasing choices and that’s bad news for the hog industry. Cruelty to support profits is not acceptable. Positive  changes can be made in the housing of pigs and still have a viable industry”.

 

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For more information contact:

 I

Vicki Burns , Hog Watch Manitoba Steering Committee

204-489-3852      vickiburns@mts.net

 

Bill Massey  , Hog Watch Manitoba Steering Committee

204-461-3468   wmassey@highspeedcrow.ca 

Alternatives to factory model of hog production:

 

·       Animals housed in barns with straw bedding and having access to outside pastures, no liquid manure slurry system

·       Fewer animals per barn

·       No antibiotics in animal feed. Only antibiotics administered if the animal is sick and has been prescribed by a veterinarian

·       Examples of alternative systems  - Xaletto Straw housing System Germany - Xaletto: the economic management system for closed houses with straw bedding - Big Dutchman

Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms SECRETS to raising PIGS for LAND REGENERATION & PROFIT - Bing video