Recently the EU brought out regulations for organic farming and these allow lower standards, something that CIWF is fighting against. About organic farming The standards of organic farms in Ireland, in my own experience, are very high. I have been on quite a few organic farms and have seen pigs in marvellous situations. On the factory pig farm, it is depressing to look at these intelligent and active animals crammed into barren concrete pens, or in the case of pregnant breeding sows, imprisoned into tiny 4-sided individual stalls where they can barely move at all and provided with no straw for bedding. They lie on cold concrete floors and the breeding sows often show every sign of having become mentally ill because of this terribly life of deprivation.
Birth happens in an equally restrictive farrowing crate.
Pigs that I have seen on organic farms live quite a different life. I remember seeing one small herd out in an old orchard, digging into the ground for interesting things to eat, roaming amongst the trees. What a contrast to the factory farm. I have stood in a shed with 22,000 birds, the whole floor was carpeted with them. These birds never go outdoors and, because it is quite warm inside the shed and there is absolutely nothing to do anyway, they are inactive and basically just sit about all day putting on weight.