Blantyre Farms, previously exposed for animal cruelty, have lodged a new DA for a large scale intensive piggery at Harden in the Hilltops NSW shire. 

As a signatory to this petition, I am adding my name and contact details as an objector to the Blantyre Farms Development Application (DA NO 2020/0005) lodged with the Hilltops Council for a proposed intensive piggery at Harden with the capacity for 2,200 sows and their young equating to approximately 25,000 pigs.

I am requesting that all Councillors’ and NSW State Government Agencies take into thorough consideration my views and comments when assessing the Blantyre Farms DA and the Applicant’s failure to adequately address the mandatory assessment criteria for a Designated and Integrated development, as outlined in the Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARs).

I further request that this submission is counted and included as a formal objection, and that my name and contact details are registered and recorded as an official objector and interested party with this DA process and outcome.

In December 2015 Edwina and Michael Beveridge of Blantyre Farms lodged a large scale Development Applicant (DA) with the then Harden Council (under NSW council amalgamation administration at the time), to expand their existing intensive piggery business on a rural site in the Harden NSW region. After a hard fought 19 month campaign which attracted a record number of objections, the DA was finally refused in late 2017.

Blantyre Farms have now lodged another DA for an intensive piggery at the same proposed Harden region site, with the now merged Hilltops Council. The new DA includes infrastructure for 25,000 pigs, including 2,200 sows and their young, 5 breeder sheds and 16 grower sheds.

Footage obtained from inside Golden Grove and DHG Piggeries in 2013 clearly demonstrates the cruelty and mistreatment considered standard practice by Blantyre Farms.

The new DA is on public exhibition until 18 May 2020 to enable public submissions. Any member of the public can lodge a submission. You are not required to reside to be a resident of the Hilltops shire or NSW.

This new DA, if approved (post construction), involves many thousands of pigs being subjected to cruel confinement in un-natural and unhygienic surroundings, where they will suffer extreme distress, frustration and painful routine husbandry procedures. Those who die in the Blantyre Farms sheds will be dumped in the dead pig compost pit. Juvenile pigs will be transported weekly from Harden NSW to the Diamond Valley Pork slaughterhouse in Laverton, Melbourne, where they will be lowered into a carbon dioxide gas chamber. Inside this chamber they will face excruciating pain as the gas suffocates them and turns to carbonic acid in their eyes, nose, mouth and lungs, until they lose consciousness (view footage).

The focus of the 'Say No To Blantyre Farms In Harden' campaign is opposing the new Blantyre Farms DA for an intensive piggery in Harden NSW, on a platform of Animals, the Environment and People, and opposing 'A Right to Harm'.

"At a time of rapid global animal agriculture disease spread, heightened concern about the treatment of highly social and intelligent sentient beings, the climate emergency including unprecedented environmental devastation and public health pandemics, without question, the new Blantyre Farms plans for intensive piggery expansion must be vigorously challenged and opposed".

- Say No Campaign Team

WHAT CAN YOU DO ?

Help us to oppose the new Blantyre Farms DA to prevent the suffering of hundreds of thousands of pigs at the hands of Edwina and Michael Beveridge. Sign and share our Say No Petition and stay up to date with our Say No To Blantyre Farms In Harden campaign updates.

SIGN and SHARE OUR PETITION 

LODGE AN OBJECTION using our TEMPLATE

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VIEW the WEBSITE (footage and images)

BLANTYRE FARMS HISTORY

• Edwina and Michael Beveridge currently own and operate Golden Grove Piggery and Dead Horse Gully (DHG) Piggery in Young NSW, where an estimated 25,000 pigs, including 2,200 sows, are kept in cruel intensive confinement. Edwina's extended family, the Walker & Rowntree families (Windridge Farms), own other large intensive factory farm piggeries in the region including Wonga Piggery and Templemore Piggery. Wonga piggery (Young NSW) was the site of a large fire in June 2015 which resulted in the horrific death of approximately 2,500 pigs trapped in sheds and unable to escape.
• In the farrowing crates at Golden Grove, sows showed signs of distress, exhibiting stereotypies (abnormal repetitive behaviours) such as bar biting, rubbing repetitively on bars and protruding edges, prolonged pressing and pushing, head bowing, weaving, stepping back and forward and 'sham' chewing. Many have great difficulty standing up or lying down due to weakness, the tiny size of their cages, and the slippery metal floor. Some pigs had less than two inches of space in front or behind them, and all were unable to take more than one or two steps forwards or backwards, and were unable to turn around. They are kept here for upwards of six weeks at a time, as is the industry standard.
• A large number of dead and dying piglets were found at Golden Grove each night activists visited. Many of these were simply left in the aisles, often in full view of their mothers who could see through the bars beneath their feeding trough. A number of piglets were killed or severely injured by "overlay", where the sows lie on top of their piglets, crushing them. The industry claims farrowing crates prevent overlay. Yet the footage from Blantyre Farms completely undermines such a claim. The footage shows that where sows have difficulty standing or lying and cannot move away from their young, and where piglets have little room of their own, overlay is inevitable.
• Workers cut off the tails and teeth of piglets, and cut sections out of their ears, all without pain relief. Tails are discarded in the aisles and sometimes even end up in the food trolley. Tail cutting is performed by the majority of piggeries in Australia as an attempt to prevent cannibalism (tail biting) once the pigs are moved into overcrowded "grower" sheds which completely lack stimulation. Despite the tail cutting, Blantyre's grower facility, Dead Horse Gully (DHG), has a severe cannibalism problem.
• When moving piglets between farrowing crates ("fostering") or taking them from their mothers to be moved across the road to DHG Piggery, workers pick them up by one leg and throw them into trolleys, the piglets often landing head-first or crashing into others already in the trolley.
• Once impregnated, sows are moved into the large group housing shed, which features row upon row of open-backed sow stalls, where the sows can move out into a small corridor between the stalls, but must return to the stalls for food and water or to avoid being attacked by other sows, as is common due to the overcrowded, unstimulating conditions. The air in this shed is filthy, and for the sixteen weeks of their pregnancy the sows remain trapped here without sunlight, on concrete floor where they must live amongst each others' urine and faeces (in natural conditions, pigs will urinate and defecate far away from where they sleep and eat).
• Upon finding hidden cameras in the farrowing shed, Edwina Beveridge set a trap for activists; upon their return, eight men were sent out to "hunt" them in a pursuit that lasted over 4 hours. The activists' car had been destroyed, with one window smashed in, all tyres deflated with the valves cut off, and extensive damage to the engine. Personal belongings inside the car had been rifled through, and in an interview with The Land Edwina admitted to viewing identification contained within the locked car. However, police refused to press charges, citing a "lack of evidence".
• Edwina then took to harassing board members of multiple animal rights groups with frivolous legal threats, and has since acquired several influential positions including on Australian Pork Limited's board, on the NSW Farmers Pork Committee and is a member of the NSW Primary Industries Ministerial Advisory Committee.

 

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES

The focus of the 'Say No To Blantyre Farms In Harden' campaign is opposing the new Blantyre Farms DA for an intensive piggery in Harden NSW, on a platform of Animals, the Environment and People and 'A Right to Harm',

We will be targeting a number of critical key areas including:

* The well documented and systemic hidden animal cruelty, abuse and suffering synonymous with the intensive factory farming of animals, and the documented and evidenced Blantyre Farms history.

* The significant environmental risks and impacts and cumulative impacts associated with the ever increasing spread of toxic intensive animal agricultural industries across our rural landscape, with a focus on biodiversity and biosecurity including disease and pandemics.

* The wide range of 'people' impacts including employees, consumers (public health) and local rural community.

Without question, the Blantyre Farms plans for expansion of their intensive piggery business must be vigorously challenged and opposed.