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 RSPCA enters the classroom to slam pig farmers 

RSPCA enters the classroom to slam pig farmers

12/05/2008 10:59:00 AM
The RSPCA has taken its activism into primary school class rooms in Brisbane, where students donned pink shirts in the lead up to Mothers' Day to tell the community that "pigs are mums too" and shouldn't be kept in sow stalls.

About 50 parents and teachers gathered on Friday to hear the Year Six students at Holland Park State School speak about the "horrors" faced by sows kept in two-metre long stalls, with little room to move and care for their young.

The Pink for Pigs day was organised as part of the school's active citizenship curriculum and students have been working for several months to educate the community.

The school has also hosted fundraising days and previously distributed information leaflets to families.

The students gave presentations and performed a song to raise awareness of the issue.

Dozens of posters decorated the stage, emblazoned with statements like "save our bacon" and "pigs love mud, not cages".

RSPCA education officer Claire Boyce said educating children was the key to changing the way pigs are kept.

"People don't like to think where their food has come from, but the RSPCA likes to encourage people to be aware of how animals are treated," Ms Boyce said.

While free-range pork was not yet widely available, she encouraged people to ask their local butchers for advice.

"With more promotion and awareness, I think it's only a matter of time before we see sow stalling banned in Australia."

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Comments


Great to see the RSPCA in one state following the lead of the wonderful "Save Babe" campaign by Animals Australia.

Children and adults should be told and shown the absolute truth about the inherent cruelty of sow stalls, factory farming, and the slaughter process in abattoirs should also be part of any honest and full education.

Pigs, just like dogs and other animals, are sentient beings.

They feel pain and are certainly capable of experiencing joy and sadness.

Children have an innate ability to sense this in animals.

It is such a pity that our society shapes most children into desensitised apathetic adults.

Posted by Vego, for life. on 12/05/2008 5:42:24 PM
The school needs to be congratulated for their audacity in facing cruelty to animals when they are part of our food!

Most people don't want to hear, but just eat it in ignorance.

Pigs are actually intelligent and social animals, but they are treated in factory farms as utilities, as production machines.

Sow stalls are just torture methods for pinning the animals for 16 weeks without movement, and without bedding.

It is just a disgrace!

All to provide cheap ham and bacon, products that are not healthy anyway.

Posted by Vivienne on 12/05/2008 5:56:31 PM
Keep hyping up nonsense instead of commonsense and we will shortly be a 3rd world country where the pig lives in the house and the only part of the pig not usable is the squeal as in Asia.

I am sure your year 6s would appreciate a pig in their bed room.

Posted by Richie10 on 12/05/2008 7:59:07 PM
I understand that an animal cruelty tax is to be introduced in tonight's budget.

Any product which has involved suffering to animals will incur a surcharge – the aim being to move producers out of these farm-factory industries and into less cruel systems or into growing fruit and veg.

This goes hand in hand with Prof Richard Telford’s call for tax rebates on fruit and veg as an anti-obesity measure (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/12/2242348.htm).

There will also be a carbon tax introduced based on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in producing the goods as well as an oncost to reflect the true cost of water used and a penalty on the land and water pollution from concentrated animal excrement.

The sum of all these measures would mean that meat, dairy and wool would be priced out of the market.

Sounds fair to me.

Well done, RSPCA.

Posted by Snyder on 13/05/2008 9:23:36 AM
Editor's note: You must have access to the Budget papers before everyone else. I doubt we will see any such taxes or that the new Government would be politically foolish enough to marginalise the vast majority of the population which eats meat daily. After all they were elected on a platform including lowering grocery prices.
Posted by Michael Thomson on 13/05/2008 4:57:03 PM
Silly me, I thought schools were places of learning not propaganda.

Of course people can have different views on aspects of modern livestock production including caged hens, sow stalls etc.

Yes childen can be taught about these practices and the benefits and costs associated with their use.

But using schools to promote a particular ethical view seems at odds with the view of schools as places of learning.

What next? Year Six students being visited by Greenpeace and having an anti whaling day?

Posted by Blair Bartholomew on 13/05/2008 11:50:18 AM
Editor's note: Well said. The classroom is not the place for political activism.
Posted by Michael Thomson on 13/05/2008 4:58:31 PM
This is a great initiative by RSPCA.

Educating children is a wonderful strategy in trying to get a better deal for pigs.

Congratulations to RSPCA and to the children, parents and teachers involved.

Posted by O.Parkes on 13/05/2008 3:29:58 PM
Editor's note: Would you be just as happy to have representatives of the pig industry in the classroom explaining their practices?
Posted by Michael Thomson on 13/05/2008 4:55:18 PM
Dear Editor Michael, Why not have representatives of the pig industry explaining their practices to school children? I have no problem with this, as long as it is a full and honest representation, and I think a visit to an intensive piggery and abattoir should be a compulsory part of everyone's education. Why hide it?
Posted by Vego, for life. on 13/05/2008 7:16:39 PM
The Editor has commented on some of the ratbag views.

Wouldn't it be better if he didn't publish the drivel from these ratbags?

Posted by macca on 13/05/2008 7:19:02 PM
What a joke. Some of these comments are so irrational and unfounded, I think pigs have a better chance of flying backwards before a modern sow will end up back in the paddock…similar to how pigs were reared back before the war…when milk cost 5c per litre.

With food prices going up, consumers are demanding cheaper food…and so they should.

Shame on you RSPCA to bring political activism into a classroom!

If all the parents at Holland Park were aware their school was used as a platform for left wing activism, I'm sure a lot of kids would be changing school.

Posted by Ben F on 13/05/2008 8:21:33 PM
Well.

I have been a farmer all my life and work ed in comercial piggeries.

They are not cruel, they are kept humanely.

The crates are more for more the safety of the babies.

In a free situation the sow is more likely to lie on half the young.

I think this is more a humane society prank.

Posted by PIG on 13/05/2008 8:48:04 PM
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