Farmer’s ethical approach is in animal welfare campaign
THE Good Life Meat Company has taken part in a promotional video for Farms Not Factories, highlighting the benefits of keeping high-welfare animals and how they’ve been faring during the Covid era.
The featured video uses the farm’s approach to encourage ethical living conditions for livestock, and is available to view on farmsnotfactories. org as well as social media.
The Staffordshire farm keeps rare breed British pigs that are all slow grown.
They are artisan producers of charcuterie and traditional reared rare breed meats.
One of a handful of UK producers who breed and rear their own livestock, which means they have full control over the whole process and know exactly what goes into each product.
Helen Dale, from the farm, said: ‘We care about how the pigs live and make sure they have plenty of space, living outdoors all year round, with shelter as required (you’d be surprised how, on a frosty morning, our pigs can still be seen lying outdoors!).’
‘We are aiming to produce as little waste as possible by starting to sell fleeces, horns, lard, and anything else which can make our enterprise truly nose-to-tail”.
“Fortunately some good things have come out of the coronavirus pandemic. We have built up more local contacts as we are interested in producing for local markets”.
“It does seem that the current social climate has encouraged people to buy produce from more local sources which tend to be more ethical and higher quality, perhaps in part to avoid overcrowded supermarkets and having a bit more time to investigate where their food comes from and how it’s produced, in Britain and abroad.
“Hopefully this conversation will continue and people will remember local producers, rather than returning to buying low quality produce such as factory farmed pork which may appear cheap but costs in other ways”.
Campaigning against factory pig farms for over 15 years, Farms Not Factories uses video for public screenings and social media to expose the damage caused by factory pig farming to animals, human health, environment, rural economies and urges consumers to only buy local, high welfare and ethically produced pork.
During the coronavirus lockdown, the group has been asking smallscale pig farmers to film themselves explaining how their businesses are faring and how they have adapted their sales strategies to cope with the impacts of the pandemic.
“Thankfully most are doing well as the lockdown has meant that more people are shopping locally from farmers they trust.” says Tracy Worcester leader of the campaign group.
Good Life Meat Company’s video can be viewed at: www. farmsnotfactories.org/articles/farmcase-study-eleven-good-life-meatstaffordshire