An undercover video filmed in a hog barn was recently released. The video never showed any sign of animal abuse, says Cara Haden, DVM and director of animal welfare at Pipestone. Although she’s thankful it wasn’t a Pipestone farm, she says it’s still incredibly frustrating that someone got into a pig barn and produced a video with the intention of making the pork industry look bad.
“Apparently this undercover person couldn’t find any abuse going on at the farm, so what they had to do is take normal things that happen on farms and try to make them look bad,” she explained during the April 2025 State of the Pork Industry Report. “Please don’t go watch the video as we don’t want to drive any views.”
She says it’s frustrating that it’s not enough to have perfect welfare and that it’s not enough to have no abuse or animal welfare concerns on your farm.
“If someone gets in, they can still try to make things look bad no matter how good your farm is,” Haden says.
Although the video doesn’t appear to be manipulated, the video content was produced to manipulate the viewer. For example, the video tries to say the sows are too long for their crates, when it’s evident the sows had plenty of room at the other end of the crate, Haden says.
“The video talked about gestation stalls and how the sows can’t turn around,” Haden says. “From a welfare professional standpoint, there are gives and takes to those sorts of things. There’s pros and cons to that system. It is not always bad from an animal welfare standpoint, there are some great things about stalls and the ability to control the amount of feed and more.”
The truth is animal activists don’t care about improving animal welfare, Haden points out. They want to end animal agriculture.
How can you prevent a similar incident happening on your farm? Haden and experts on the State of the Pork Industry Report shared five things you can do to help keep animal extremists at bay.
1. Educate your team.
One of the most important things producers can do to avoid a situation like this is to focus on the education of all employees, but especially new hires, says Adam Annegers, sow production manager at JBS.
“Have multiple discussions on welfare and animal handling topics,” he advises. “Most importantly, reinforce if you see something, say something. We want people to report any type of issue right away, so it doesn’t grow into something bigger.”
2. Carefully screen potential employees in the interview process.
Keeping animal activists out starts with a thorough interview and screening process of new employees. Randy Kuker, director of swine production for The Equity, says their team has implemented a committee approach to interviews.
“It can be somewhat intimidating to a production tech or anybody coming in to have a committee of people asking questions, but we think it’s in the best interest of the farm,” Kuker says. “We start off the interview by stating that we have a zero-tolerance animal welfare abuse policy and gage their reactions off of that.”
When the interview is over, the committee has a debrief, he says. They address questions including: Was there anything in the interview that was said or done that gave us pause as to whether we thought that the individual interviewing across the table from us had ulterior motives?
“I think we get into a position where we need a warm body now, and we don’t think of those things in the interview process,” Kuker says. “By having a committee approach, we always keep these things in the front part of our minds.”
3. Keep a vigilant watch in the barn.
Haden encourages producers to remember the basics. Locking doors is important and so is hiding your key in a good spot, she adds. Make sure door codes are changed regularly.
“Protect what comes into the farm,” Haden says. “I think it’s crazy, but there are recording devices that can go in glasses and all sorts of things, so we need to be aware of what’s coming into our farms.”
4. Look for suspicious activity.
Pay attention to caregivers who hang out in sensitive areas, especially if they’re not supposed to be there. From castration and processing to euthanasia and hospital spaces, those areas need extra close attention.
“If they’re not a caregiver trained in euthanasia yet, they shouldn’t be hanging out in the euthanasia or mortality area,” Haden says.
Other red flags include people who want to work on your farm who have no reason to be in the geographic region of your farm, she adds.
“If someone wants to work in South Dakota, and they have no reason to be there because they have no connection to the area, that’s suspicious,” Haden says. “If they’ve got higher education, but it’s not in the swine space, what are they doing trying to work at a pig farm?”
5. Tell your story.
When the first videos came out 15 to 20 years ago, it was really surprising, says Brad Eckberg, account executive at MTech Systems.
“I think we did a great job from an industry standpoint to really educate those from outside the industry that this is not the normal,” Eckberg says. “We are not like this. It became an opportunity for many great companies to open up their doors to outsiders. Come in, see what we actually do on a day-to-day basis and how much we care for those animals.”
Let people know the importance of continual training and certification for your farm such as PQA Plus certification and adhering to We Care ethical principles.
Watch or listen to their entire discussion ranging from PRRS to H-2A challenges to unique things they’re doing on the farm on YouTube or anywhere podcasts are found. These experts share their perspective on what’s been happening on farms in Q1 2025 and what’s yet to come this year.
Catch up on past State of the Pork Industry Reports.
