WHAT'S THE PIG IDEA?

Planning is underway for a US-style intensive pig farm in Foston, Derbyshire. The massive development would house 2,500 adult and 25,000 growing pigs – with 1,000 being sent to slaughter on a weekly basis.

Incredulously, the company Midland Pig Producers are billing this hell-hole as a green energy solution, by incorporating a biomass plant to recycle ‘retained gasses’. For a factory pig, even your farts can be commodified.  They also claim ‘there will be no significant impact on the fauna, flora, or water courses in the area as a result of this development’- a blatant gloss-over the fact that 30 acres of greenfield site will be bulldozed for the new factory.

Environmental and animal rights abuses notwithstanding, the introduction of intensive mega-farms in the UK is also a dark economic path. Able to operate on economies of scale, the mega farms will  push many smaller farms out of business. Eventually the whole of Norfolk will have to be covered over and turned into a single mega-hyper-giga farm.  

7,500 objections to the planning permission have been lodged so far. To send an objection or sign the petition see www.pigbusiness.co.uk