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100 pigs loose on Danish road after truck overturns

A transport vehicle with about 100 pigs on board overturned onto a car on Friday morning at Munke Bjergby in western Zealand

Published: 24 January 2020 12:08 CET

100 pigs loose on Danish road after truck overturns

File photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix

South Zealand and Lolland-Falster Police confirmed the accident, which occurred shortly after 7am.

“We were alerted that a pig transport overturned onto a car and that one person is trapped in the car. Both we, the fire service and Falck [paramedics, ed.] sent response teams,” police duty officer Lars Denholt told Ritzau.

“We are in contact with the driver of the passenger car, but we cannot get him out of the car, so we have some special equipment on the way now so we can get the trailer released and get him out,” Denholt said.

The police duty officer said that the extent of the male driver’s injuries were not yet known, but that rescue personnel “are not highly concerned about his condition”.

The accident happened at Munke Bjergbyvej, a road north of the town of Sorø. The road was blocked in both directions due to the accident.

Denholt warned that the road could take some time to clear.

“I expect this could take most of the day. We must locate all the pigs before we can open (the road) again. We will have to examine and assess all of them and possibly put some down if they have injuries that make them no longer usable,” he said.

Around 100 pigs which were in the overturned transport were wandering freely in the area due to the accident, the officer confirmed. A number of veterinarians have been called in to help assess the animals.

The cause of the accident was unknown, Denholt said at around 8:30am on Friday.

“We do not know (the cause) at this time. We have spoken to the driver of the transport and he is very shocked over what happened, so we’ve been unable to question him,” he said.

“For the same reason, we have not spoken to the driver of the car,” he added.

READ ALSO: Escaped cows cause chaos on Copenhagen highway

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A protestor wearing a pig mask holds a sign reading

A protestor wearing a pig mask holds a sign reading "Stop macrofarms" during a demonstration to denounce the permits for new intensive livestock farms and to demand sustainable livestock farming in Cuenca. (Photo by OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP)

“That’s not a farm, it’s a factory… a pig factory,” says Antonio Escribano as he stares at a huge metal frame in the middle of a field in Spain.

The 58-year-old local winemaker has for months been battling the planned opening of a large pig farm that will breed almost 40,000 piglets a year from 2,200 sows less than three kilometres (1.9 miles) from his town of Quintanar del Rey, in the central province of Cuenca.

Locals fear the pollution from pig manure, bad smells and flies, which they say the project will bring, and have staged regular protests against it.

The farm is just 350 metres (1,200 feet) from the wells that provide the town of around 7,000 residents with fresh water.

“If the water gets polluted, the village will be ruined,” says Escribano, who speaks with a gravelly voice and has salt and pepper hair.

“People will leave as has happened in other villages and Quintanar will become a ghost village.”

In response to the protests, local authorities have suspended work on the farm while they re-evaluate the project’s environmental impact.

Some locals are pushing for the project by Spanish firm Jisap, which already owns 480 pig farms in Spain, to be shuttered for good.

“We must put an end to mega-farms,” says Paciencia Talaya of the “Stop Mega-farms” group, which has led opposition to the project.

"We want to smell the pines, not pig shit" and "No to artificial fattening, we want health and wellbeing" reads two of the signs at the recent protest in Cuenca province. (Photo by OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP) — “We want to smell the pines, not pig shit” and “No to artificial fattening, we want health and wellbeing” reads two of the signs at the recent protest in Cuenca province. (Photo by OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP)

‘Dump of Europe’

Over the past decade, mega-farms that produce livestock with the efficiency of auto assembly lines inside warehouse-like barns have multiplied across Spain, sparking opposition from local residents.

Residents are demanding an end to intensive pig farming, fearing the impact on groundwater and their quality of life from untreated manure

Fuelled by demand from China, Spain has become the European Union’s top pork producer.

The number of pigs raised in Spain jumped 21.5 percent between 2015 and 2020, according to Greenpeace.

The country had a population of 56 million pigs in 2020 — about nine million more than its humans, according to government figures.

“The sector generates a lot of money,” says Remedios Bobillo, the head of “Alive Villages”, a group set up in 2017 to fight the spread of mega-farms in Cuenca.

pigs drink water in factory in spain — Around 250,000 people work in the pork sector in Spain. Photo: RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP

“Unfortunately, the villages don’t benefit from it,” she said.

The group staged a protest on Sunday in Cuenca against the “sale of villages” to agri-food companies which drew around 1,000 people.

“Spain has become the dump of Europe and China. That can’t be,” says Bobillo.

Putting thousands of animals in one enclosure produces huge amounts of manure.

Unlike human sewage, which is treated before it is released into waterways, animal waste is stored, then spread on croplands as fertilizer.

Environmental groups say fields often can’t handle the volumes of manure produced, leading to runoff that pollutes groundwater with nitrates and ammonia.

Pig farming also consumes vast quantities of water in a country frequently affected by drought.

‘Can’t breathe’

Critics also say the barnyard whiffs from the farms of the past were nothing like the overpowering stench from today’s supersized operations.

“At some times of the year, the air is unbreathable,” says Toni Jorge of Ecologists in Action as he stands outside a pig factory farm in Cardenete, a village of about 500 people east of Cuenca.

Opened five years ago, the farm is home to 6,400 pigs that produce enough manure each year to fill four Olympic-sized swimming pools, he says.

Unlike in smaller farms, the pigs here are packed together with no access to the outdoors and daylight except for the day they are taken to slaughter, says Jorge.

Industry groups argue there are plenty of strict rules regarding the treatment of manure and livestock farmers are adopting improved methods and technology.

The sector follows “European directives on animal wellbeing”, which are a “world reference”, says the head of Spanish pork producers association Anprogapor, Miguel Angel Higuera.

“Spain is the only country in the world which limits farm capacity and imposes a minimum distance between farms and residential areas,” he adds.

The farms are one of the “rare activities” that provide jobs in rural Spain, which is suffering from depopulation, and help keep villages “alive”, he adds.

He estimates about 250,000 people work in the pork sector in Spain.

But Talaya of “Stop Mega-farms” said most work on industrial farms is mechanised.

Standing beside her, Escribano agrees.

“They say they are helping to keep people in villages. But who is going to live in a village where you can’t breathe, where you can’t drink the water?” asks local winemaker Antonio Escribano.

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