THINK of a farm, and what comes to mind – lambs leaping through a field, pigs rolling around in the mud, and cows chomping on lush grass?
Sadly, that vision is now a rarity as most chickens, ducks and turkeys in the UK are farmed in huge industrial sheds, and a whopping 99 percent of farm animals in the US are reared in factory farms, according to the SPCA.
Intensive, industrialised factory farming that abuses animals for the sake of production, efficiency and profit is all too common, but one organisation is exposing such cruelty and hoping to end the abuse.
Mercy For Animals is a non-profit organisation fighting to protect and end the systematic abuse of farmed animals. One of the main ways it does this is by sending undercover investigators into factory farms and slaughterhouses to document the inhumane treatment.
Danielle* is one such investigator who has travelled all over the US working undercover. She has been doing so for more than three years, but is still shocked by what she witnesses every day.
“There’s lots of inherent abuse and cruelty, which is standard industry practice,” she said, adding that the ‘farms’ are always dirty, dusty, unhygienic and crowded environments which are not good places for animals.
Danielle started working for Mercy For Animals because she wanted to be more active in food issues and animal welfare so the treatment she witnesses can be hard to stomach. She has witnessed a chicken suffering a heart attack in front of her.
The chickens are fattened up for slaughter in just 42 days, and because it is done so quickly, “their bodies often can’t handle the weight they have to carry around”.
Despite having been an undercover investigator for years now, Danielle still gets nervous as she knows what awaits her.
“I’m nervous, but I’m there to do my job,” she says. “I have good motivation to go in there and document what’s happening behind the scenes of how our food is produced.”
The hardest part of the job, however, is to witness all the abuse at factory farms and not be able to do anything about it for the animals already in there. Danielle just has to remind herself that by exposing these conditions, she hopes to make a difference for the animals in the long run.
Through her work with Mercy For Animals, she hopes to encourage people to reflect on the ways their food choices can affect what happens in factory farms. With brutal treatment still standard practice, there’s a long way to go.
* Not her real name