Campaigner walks free from pig farrowing crate after 21 days and nights in Trafalgar Square
A woman has walked free from a pig farrowing crate in Trafalgar Square after spending 21 consecutive days and nights confined inside it.
Animal Rising campaign lead Michelle Farnham emerged from the crate at 11am today, September 22, after entering it at 7am on September 1.
She had remained inside throughout the entire three-week protest, without leaving once, to bring the reality of factory farming into public view.
Michelle was greeted by a crowd of approximately 100 supporters and reunited with her partner and family following three weeks of intense isolation.
Thousands of people encountered the installation in one of London’s busiest public spaces, with many stopping to speak to Michelle about the protest and the conditions endured by animals on factory farms.
The action attracted national and international media attention, while high-profile visitors included former RSPCA president Chris Packham and Green MP Adrian Ramsay.
Animal Rising said Michelle’s release from the crate marked only the beginning of its long-term campaign against factory farming.
The group is calling on the Government to commit to ending factory farming by 2040 and has pledged that further investigations and exposés of conditions inside British farms will follow.
Michelle’s action was inspired by Luna, a mother pig whose life Animal Rising documented for a month on a Suffolk factory farm.
The campaigner confined herself inside a similar farrowing crate to those used in around 90 per cent of indoor British pig farming systems to restrain mother pigs around the time they give birth and nurse their piglets.
Animal Rising says around 200,000 mother pigs are confined in farrowing crates in the UK every year.
Sows can spend four to five weeks at a time inside the crates, unable even to turn around.
Michelle said: “Today, after 21 days and nights, I get to walk out of this crate. But 200,000 mother pigs in the UK are confined in farrowing crates every year, and they have no choice about entering or leaving. They are put through the same cycle again and again until their bodies are no longer considered productive.
“No matter how difficult some of the days inside this crate have been, I have always been conscious that what I have experienced is nothing compared with what pigs like Luna endure, or the suffering of the millions of animals trapped in factory farms across the UK.
“I can walk away today and know that I never have to enter this crate again. The pigs cannot. That is why this cannot end with me leaving Trafalgar Square.
“It doesn’t need to be this way. We are calling on the Government to commit to ending factory farming by 2040, with a clear plan and pathway to move away from a broken system that treats living, feeling individuals as units of production. We can build a kinder, sustainable food system. Factory farming has no place in that future.”
A petition calling for Luna to be freed is now approaching 30,000 signatures.
