How campaigners beat industrial farming in Denmark’s ‘pig election’

L ike all new prime ministers, when Mette Frederiksen secured a third consecutive term as Denmark’s head of government this week, she promised her administration would take steps to “improve the everyday lives” of the country’s inhabitants. Unlike most new prime ministers, however, she specified that her left-leaning coalition’s policy programme would be not just for “the people who are in Denmark and the ⁠generations to come” but also “for the animals”. For the home of Danish bacon, an ultra-intensive farming country that produces about 30m piglets a year – against roughly 60,000 human babies – it was a huge moment: a Danish government, seeking existential reform of Denmark’s most iconic industry. It was also the culmination of two years of focused campaigning by animal welfare, environmentalist and residents’ groups that turned March’s ballot into what became known as “the pig election” – and won a comprehensive victory. Britta Riis, the head of Animal Protection Denmark, one of the primary actors in the campaign, said: “I hardly dare say it, but we got more than we asked for. We made pig farming a top political issue. And we’ve won immediate, and systemic, change.” Pigs are to Denmark roughly what cars are to Germany and wine to France . But activists have long campaigned against the extreme breeding practices on the country’s vast, ultra-intensive industrial farms. On average, sows in Denmark wean more than 37 piglets a year, and those in the top 10% of farms nearly 43. …