In Charles Dickens’ novel A Christmas Carol, old man Scrooge understands that misanthropy and cynics won’t make Christmas any better for the society. In 2009, the Swedish population had to realize the horror inside the pigsty thanks to a great campaign by the Animal Rights Alliance. But unlike the fairytale, the consuming scrooges continued like before during Christmas.

On the traditional Swedish smorgasbord [1], pork is a very important ingredient, for example as meatballs, spare ribs, and – the symbol of the buffet – Christmas ham. During more than hundred years, farmers nationwide have slaughtered the pig at the farm before Christmas time to celebrate the feast. It is as anticipated as other dishes such as herring, different forms of cabbage and finally the sweet tasting rice pudding.

But the Christmas 2009 will be remembered for something else that might have put an unusual bitter taste on the ham that no mustard or apple purée can change. In November, the organization Djurrättsalliansen (the Animal Rights Alliance) started their campaign that created an echo from the barns, through the media, passing by the streets and all the way into the parliament building. Thanks to a clever and well-prepared campaign, their clear message reached out : The livestock keeping in pork business is nothing but a disaster.

Gap between Law and Practice

Consumers know very well that the Swedish law in livestock keeping is much better than in other European countries – even the best in the world according to Djurrättsalliansen. The label for Swedish meat has since many decades been an important indicator of meat coming from farms where animal rights are respected. This is often used to differ it from foreign companies that tries to gain market shares, not least from Denmark where the laws are much less stern against pig-farmers so they can produce cheaper meat. But the scoop made by Djurrättsalliansen has certainly showed a huge gap between Swedish law and practice.

For two years, the organization has visited a hundred farms where they have recorded with hidden camera and microphone from the inside and heart of Swedish meat industry. In some of the farms they have brought professional journalists that afterwards could confirm that the material was reliable and not a fake. The results were shocking. The conditions were terrible with pigs left sick and in urgent need of nursing. They climbed on each other because of lack of space. There were pigs eating on each other and dead animals were lying in the boxes. The short version of A Life as a Pig where the pictures speak for themselves :

82 reported farms

So, 100 farms have been part of this giant exposure of Swedish meat industry and 82 of them were reported to the police for breaking the law of prevention of cruelty to animals. The farm of the Chairman of Swedish Meat was among the reported farms. There, the conditions were so horrible that he had to leave his post. The Minister for Agriculture – Eskil Erlandsson from the Centre Party [2] – had some troubling weeks in the parliament. It has been much critic especially from the Green Party, and Erlandsson regretted what had happened and said that he would immediately have a discussion with the pork industry. The new policy is that veterinaries will visit the farms more frequently. The problem is that the veterinaries are guilty too because of their lack of competence to reveal the terrible conditions before. In an industry with the values of economy as main objective and with victims easy to ignore, it is hard to have a good livestock keeping.

At the same time, the farmers shouldn’t all alone bear the burden of the situation. The Swedish pork consumers – the poor consumers – must be willing to pay the price for meat coming from pigs that have had a decent life. [3] The production of meat is expensive and without consumers paying for it, someone else will pay the price. In this case, 82 reported farmers that rightfully are seen as scrooges. And of course, the millions of pigs that suffers.

A Lack of Efforts

And we were all waiting for 2010 to see how big losses the pork industry had done thanks to (or because of for those who prefer) the attention in media. It seems like Christmas ham from organic farms has had a minor boost and gained a few market shares. But over all, the first results [4] say that the consumption hasn’t decreased. The Swedes seem to have eaten the usual amount of pork meat. The greedy Scrooge made an effort and changed his behavior in the carol, but the Swedish population couldn’t do the same thing and change the pork consumption. The traditions are deeply rooted.

Hopefully, the animal liberation movements could get more attention in the upcoming years. The campaign of the year 2009 didn’t lead to any large immediate effect on the consumption of Swedish pork. [5] But it has put the whole meat industry under pressure. And it has shown how well-formulated laws in practice can be nothing bah humbug.