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Date Published: 25/10/2021

ARCHIVED - Greenpeace labels Murcia-owned pig farm in Andalusia the most polluting in Spain

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

The industrial pig farm belonging to Murcian company Cefusa is located in Granada

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Greenpeace labels Murcia-owned pig farm in Andalusia the most polluting in Spain

“Abandonment, dead animals and filth”. This is how environmental organisation Greenpeace categorised a facility undertaking intensive animal farming in Andalucía. While documenting the state in which pigs live in one of the facilities owned by the Murcian company Cefusa (part of the Fuertes group together with the famous packages meat brand El Pozo), Greenpeace condemned the neglect the animals faced and the shameful lack of hygiene in the meat processing plant.

The plant, which is dedicated to breeding piglets, is located in the Granada municipality of Castilléjar, in the northeast of the province, where the company fattens 651,000 piglets a year for slaughter. As well as the living and dying conditions of the animals, Greenpeace has also decried that this is “the pig farm with the highest methane and ammonia emissions in the country”.

Inside, Greenpeace documented scenes of mothers who had just given birth, or were in the process of giving birth, “without any kind of assistance and with numerous dead piglets in tiny cages full of faeces, as well as rodents everywhere and a lot of dirt”.

The visit to this “mega-complex of the butcher of El Pozo” was part of Greenpeace’s campaign to condemn the “high environmental and social impact of industrial livestock farming”, which contributes to the climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity and the excessive consumption and contamination of water.

While Greenpeace has called for the Junta de Andalucía to carry out an “immediate” inspection of the farm and for a moratorium on new macro-farms, as is already happening in some municipalities in the region, the Fuertes Group company pointed out in a press release that the farm complies “strictly with current European and Spanish animal welfare regulations” and that “the six audits carried out this year by the sector’s interprofessional organisation Interporc on the Castilléjar farm have given us a score of more than 90 points out of 100”.

Furthermore, the Fuertes Group responded that it “scrupulously” complies with all the specific biosecurity measures “to safeguard the livestock of our country”, and that “the entry of unauthorised persons into a livestock facility represents serious risks to the health of the animals”.

However, Greenpeace assured that they accessed the facilities using Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) and “exhaustive biosecurity measures”, so that they could not be accused of negligence.

“What Greenpeace has found on the macro-farm is shameful. If this happens here, we don’t even want to imagine how many other such facilities there could be in the rest of Spain,” said Luís Ferreirim, Greenpeace’s agriculture officer.

Annually, Spain slaughters 910 million animals for meat exports and has fewer free-range animals than any other country in the European Union.

Images: Greenpeace

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