Liberate

One afternoon in June this year several of us took a ‘self guided’ tour of a North Island pig factory farm. This was our first Farm Tour. It is an idea that had been floating around Auckland Animal Action for a few years now but nothing was ever done about it, until now.

There are many reasons for doing farm tours and some reasons for not doing them. Naturally there is an element of risk in doing a Farm Tour in that you could end up being arrested for trespassing and for burglary (you can be done for burglary if you are found in a building without lawful purpose; you don’t have to intend or actually take anything (or anyone . While there are ways to reduce these risks they can never be entirely eliminated.

The main reason for carrying out Farm Tours is primarily that many activist will never get to see factory farms, vivisection labs or slaughter houses for themselves. I think it is important, not only for their own self education, but also so that activists can feel the animals pain and suffering personally and feel more compelled to fight for their liberation. Many of us who have been around for a while will have noticed the number of people who have come and gone from the movement. This will be for many reasons but part of it I think is that activists never really interact with animals, either suffering or rescued, so they will start to become detached from those who they are fighting for and feel like the time, effort and money that they put into activism is a waste. Seeing factory farms is a completely different experience to that of seeing it on a screen or reading about it and it is not an experience that will be easily forgotten.

To ensure that we also had a positive experience a month after the Farm Tour we also took a visit to The Sanctuary, just out of Warkworth. We spent the day interacting with rescued animals and learning about them. This was a great experience and quite a contrast to what we have seen a month earlier.

From a more practical point of view, it is also a good way to learn many new skills. In terms of this first Farm Tour before we went to the farm we spent time learning a bit about pig farming and the regulations of this industry. When we were on the farm we took photos and video footage of what we saw. Everyone was able to gain not only knowledge about pig farming but also how to use video and still cameras and also to become used to being infront of cameras. Following the farm visit we put together a documentary about our visit and pig farming. This enabled us to practice being interviewed; how we would prepare for these interviews and how we would answer questions.

We did not take any animals while we were on the farm as it would not be safe for the people or animals involved. It is also not the point of the tours.

We plan to do more of these visits to different types of farms and would like to involve more people over time. While it can not be said it was a good experience we did achieve our goals of giving people a first hand experience of factory farming and of pigs themselves.

For one persons account of their first time on a pig farm see page 5 of this issue of Liberate.

To see our documentary please search Pig Farm Tour on youtube (www.youtube.com)