June 2, 2006 - Nature and Animal Killers – Get Off!

On Friday the 2nd of June, 2006 a Lithuanian Green Movement conducted an action against the introduction of Danish pig breeding complexes to our country. The event took place outside the Danish embassy.

The background to this story is an incident in Pasvalys, a small town in northern Lithuania, when sewage from the Danish pig breeding complex "Saerimner" drained into a stream which also flows through the territory of Latvia. According to Latvian mass media, fish started to suffocate there. Unfortunately, both Latvian and Lithuanian environmentalists are prolonging this investigation and still do not have anything with which to respond to the latter fact. Moreover, Latvian officials refused to set up a claim for compensation for the damage caused because "the accident has been small". It is thought that about 30 tons of sewage could have flowed into the stream and the representatives of "Saerimner" did not inform environment specialists about that.

What? How? Why?

The enterprise "Saerimner", which is registered in Lithuania and supported by Danish investment funds, has pig breeding complexes in Pasvalys, Pakruojis, Kelmė and Ignalina. Now they are trying to build farms in Mažeikiai and Molėtai. All in all they are planning to build 30 pig breeding complexes.

In short, the Danish want to shift a part of their pig breeding complexes to less developed countries, such as Lithuania, where labour force is cheaper and laws are not so strict. According to one euro commissioner, Denmark has already become a green desert, and the reasons for that are pig breeding complexes.

"Saerimner" pig breeding complexes not only do not have bio generators without which such pig breeding complexes could not be established in Western countries, but they also lack basic purification equipment. The sewage, which mainly contains nitrogen, is not suitable for field fertilizing because it does not contain potassium and phosphorus. Having once "fertilized" the soil using such sewage, which contains about 500 types of various harmful substances (including antibiotics and disinfectants) and damaging microorganisms, the soil will hardly be suitable for ecological farming again. Such sewage pollutes soil, ground water and air - its strong, unpleasant odour is noticeable even 15 kilometres away. 12,000 or more animals are bred in one farm. A living space provided for a pig is so small that the animal cannot even turn around.