Pig tales

I AM saddened by the National Pig Association’s claims that Compassion in World Farming (CWF) is “threatening the welfare of pigs on British farms” (your report, 6 March).

CWF is not campaigning to prevent pig producers from replacing worn-out housing. We want to ensure that producers investing in new buildings have considered the needs of pigs adequately, especially relating to environmental enrichment and its positive impact on pig welfare, which is well established in scientific literature.

Consumers would be outraged if they knew how pigs are often crowded indoors in barren pens in contravention of European animal welfare laws. CWF campaigns relentlessly against the factory farming of pigs and will continue to do so. Our aim is to see pigs kept to genuinely higher welfare standards, rather than the conditions of utter deprivation all too often found on the most intensive indoor farms.

CWF would like to see a thriving British pig industry, operating to high standards of farm animal welfare.

Joyce D’Silva

Compassion in World Farming

Mill Lane

Godalming, Surrey