The Price of Pork

Over the last three years, Farm Transparency Project has set out to expose the current state of the Australian pig meat industry with groundbreaking investigations into the confinement and slaughter of pigs in Australia. 

Our investigations have exposed: 

• The ongoing use of sow stalls in Victorian piggeries, five years after an industry promised phase-out.
• Death, sickness and suffering at pig farms across the country.
• The horrific suffering and slaughter of pigs inside carbon dioxide gas chambers.
• The mutilation and violent killing of day-old piglets at a major Victorian piggery.
• The sickening rape of Olivia, a sow confined to a farrowing crate at a Victorian pig farm.

Andgar Piggeries

In June 2025, citizen investigators uncovered a nightmare at a South Australian piggery, where pigs were left to suffer and rot while others drowned in their own waste. That wasn't the end of the story.

In August, investigators visited the other piggeries owned by Andgar, to document conditions and ensure it could no longer hide its operations behind closed doors. Then, in September, hundreds of pigs were burnt alive in a fire at Dublin piggery. 

Victorian Piggeries, 2025

Over one weekend in January 2025, dozens of activists investigated twenty Victorian piggeries, documenting conditions and collecting the bodies of dead piglets who had lost their lives at each facility. This investigation captured an indisputable snapshot of the true brutal state of this industry as it stands today. Pigs living in their own waste, in narrow cages where they can't turn around, or packed together in barren concrete pens where aggression is inevitable. Newborn piglets with only stubs of their tails remaining, after they were cut off with scissors. Chunks cut out of their ears for identification. Legs trapped in the metal bars of the floor. Dead piglets lying next to their mothers who couldn't reach them, some of them half eaten by cats or rats. Other piglets sick or dying. Piles of the dead, dumped outside the door.

EcoPiggery

In early 2024, we investigated the piggery of President of the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) Pig Council, David Wright, who gave evidence during the Victorian Parliamentary inquiry into pig welfare. During the public hearings David Wright gave evidence about the pork industry's adherence to "industry best practices," and commitment to animal welfare, painting a picture of idyllic pig farms filled with contented pigs and hardworking farmers, under threat from vindictive, aggressive activists, determined to show his industry in a bad light. 

In response to these statements, we published an investigation into his piggery in Leitchville, Victoria, revealing shocking conditions of sows, piglets and grower pigs. We documented sows kept in narrow 'mating stalls' for over a week, as well as sows and piglets confined to farrowing crates. Many sows had painful, infected pressure sores and were forced to sleep and stand in rivers of their own waste. Sheds contained maggots and pigs were seen eating the bodies of dead kittens as well as sick and dead piglets. 

David Wright co-owns this piggery with Colin Sinclair, owner and operator of Benalla slaughterhouse. Pigs from the farm are killed inside the same brutal gas chamber we exposed in early 2023. Read more about the investigation in our editorial. 

Midland Bacon

An investigation by our team revealed the mutilation of newborn piglets, which is performed without anaesthetic or pain relief. Hidden cameras also captured the predominant method that Australian piggeries use to kill sick or weak piglets, which is to pick piglets up by their back legs, and slam head-first onto the floor, not a metre away from their mothers who watch on helplessly. In large piggeries, like Midland Bacon near Stanhope, this happens every morning.  

Sows endure a repeated cycle of forced impregnation, giving birth, and having their piglets taken away from them. This forced impregnation is done through inserting a vial of boar semen into a sows vagina, after she is manually stimulated by a worker. This kind of sexual abuse and exploitation in any other context would be considered bestiality, but the pig farming industry is granted an exemption because it relies on bestiality for this everyday procedure.

When our investigators installed hidden cameras at Midland Bacon to capture the mutilation and killing of piglets, they also captured the sickening inevitable outcome of the normalisation of sexual abuse. After the lights have gone off in the farrowing shed for the day, a male worker is seen approaching a caged sow from behind, lowering his pants, and r*ping her for several minutes. Confined to a farrowing crate, she has no way to escape.

What we want

Support farmers to transition out of the pig meat industry and into kinder alternatives. 

The only way to end the suffering of pigs in farms and slaughterhouses is to stop breeding and killing them for food. We are calling on governments to support a phaseout of one of the most cruel and unsustainable industries in Australia and choose to support kinder, plant-based alternatives to pig products.

You can also take action as an individual by pledging to stop supporting animal slaughter by leaving animals off your plate and living vegan. Take the pledge today. 

For the latest information on our efforts to get Olivia released to an animal sanctuary, please see our 'Free Olivia' FAQ article. 

View all 156 videos for this campaign in the video gallery

We've shown time and time again that the Government is acting as nothing more than a pawn for pig slaughter industry lobbyists to manipulate in order to preserve the status quo. If we want to see real change for animals, we can't rely on them to act. It is up to us. 

As long as animals are bred, confined and killed for food, there will always be pain, fear and suffering. We will never stop fighting until every cage is empty and every slaughterhouse shut down.

• Notorious Victorian piggery seeks expansion amidst barrage of complaints

  Media release: Friday 23 Jan 2026

  A Victorian piggery accused of bestiality has applied for council approval to expand.  Animal activists have rallied to fight the proposal, citing animal welfare, environmental and public health risks. Notorious Victorian piggery Midland Bacon is seeking approval from the Campaspe Shire Council to expand their piggery, with the goal of building three new sheds on their Carag Carag property. This move has animal activists outraged, leading to a storm of objections lead by advocacy group Farm Transparency Project, who have released footage taken at the facility in 2022 and 2024. Midland Bacon featured in national headlines in 2024, after footage captured during...
• Pigs burning alive at horror SA Piggery

  Media release: Monday 15 Sep 2025

  Over 500 pigs are being burnt alive as a fire rages at Andgar Piggery in Dublin, South Australia.  At 2.05pm, Farm Transparency Project received word from a local resident that a fire had broken out at Dublin Piggery in South Australia. The resident had noticed the blaze while driving past the piggery on Long Plains Road, where he was able to see the blaze and smell "burning pigs." Current reports indicate that two eco sheds are currently on fire, each holding 250 pigs who are trapped in the flames. This piggery is currently under investigation by the RSPCA after investigators from...
• Andgar's mass grave: new footage in horror piggery investigation

  Media release: Friday 22 Aug 2025

  A large open grave filled with rubbish and dead pigs is amongst new footage captured at four South Australian piggeries owned by Andgar Proprietors or its representatives.  The footage has been released one day before SA Pork's 'Industry Day', which is being held on Friday 22nd August at Barossa Park, Lyndoch.  Until recently, the committee of SA Pork included Garry Tiss, a co-owner of three of the four piggeries investigated.  Video of a 'mass grave' of pigs has been published by Farm Transparency Project (FTP), filmed at Brownlow Piggery, one of four South Australian pig farms owned...
• Director of animal charity Farm Transparency Project raided by police

  Media release: Tuesday 12 Aug 2025

  The founding director of animal protection organisation Farm Transparency Project (FTP), Chris Delforce, has been raided by Victoria Police at his Melbourne home this morning, in relation to footage of animal cruelty captured earlier this year at twenty piggeries in the state's north. Delforce's electronic devices including phones and laptops have been seized. The footage, captured by a large number of anonymous activists and provided to FTP, revealed widespread suffering, neglect, and potential breaches of animal welfare legislation, including:  Pigs living in extreme confinement in their own waste, including in "sow stalls" claimed by the industry to...
• Illegal guided video tour from inside a Victorian piggery released by activist group

  Media release: Thursday 7 Aug 2025

  Farm Transparency Project has released a guided video tour of a major Victorian piggery using footage they captured while trespassing in the facility in late 2023.  The tour was originally published last year as part of an interactive virtual-reality tour and led to charges being laid against two investigators from the organisation. Executive Director of Farm Transparency Project, Chris Delforce, speaks to camera during the tour, while showing the audience around sheds at Sunpork's Gowanbrae Piggery in Central Victoria.  Chris Delforce in a farrowing shed at Gowanbrae Piggery in Central Victoria.  Animal rights organisation Farm Transparency Project has...

See all 16 media releases

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