Notorious Piggery Operator Nominated for Top Rural Award

Despite her piggery being exposed for ongoing animal abuse, intensive piggery operator Edwina Beveridge has been nominated for a Rural Women's Award.

Footage taken in 2013 inside Edwina Beveridge's two large factory pig farms near Young NSW shows large numbers of dead and dying piglets; sows with injuries or almost no room to move within their farrowing crates; sows being beaten and jabbed by staff; live piglets being hurled into trolleys by workers; pig cannibalism in overcrowded growing-out sheds; piglets crushed by their mothers who have great difficulty standing or lying down; and evidence of forceful artificial insemination of female pigs in a "rape shed".

Edwina also admitted to sending eight men out in the middle of the night to "hunt" individuals whom she suspected of trespassing and, destroying their car.

Chris Delforce, spokesperson for Animal Liberation ACT, said: "The idea that someone who engages in such animal cruelty can be nominated for a Rural Women's Award as an 'inspirational role model' is simply offensive on many levels. It completely undermines the credibility of an award that should be reserved for compassionate and deserving individuals. It would be like awarding Wally Perenc (owner of the now-defunct Wally's Piggery) a Rural Men's award! The fact is that most Australians do not support factory farming, and are beginning to look for cruelty-free alternatives. Rather than being innovative, Edwina Beveridge is hanging on to a barbaric and entirely unnecessary system of animal abuse that the rest of the country wants to leave behind. We're asking the DPI to act compassionately and withdraw this offensive nomination."

Footage and photos from Edwina's piggeries can be seen at www.aussiepigs.com/piggeries/golden-grove and www.aussiepigs.com/piggeries/dhg.