A peek inside pig farms

Sir, – If only people could see inside intensive pig farms, then maybe they’d be prepared to pay a little more for free-range pork (Life Culture, December 14th).

Producing litters of piglets for the meat industry, most breeding sows on intensive farms spend one pregnancy after another confined in individual stalls that are so small the pigs cannot turn around. They then have to mother their young piglets while trapped in even more restrictive farrowing crates. After the piglets are removed for fattening, the cycle of pregnancy and birth begins again.

Compassion in World Farming welcomes the forthcoming EU-wide ban on sow stalls in 2013 and hopes that farrowing crates will be prohibited next. If pigs are kept indoors then they should have freedom to move, and material, such as straw, to root in. – Yours, etc,