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Neighbour to a Pig Factory

In this film, we visit families that bought their homes in small villages decades ago - when the Danish countryside was home to many family farms rearing small herds of livestock. But times have changed and they now find themselves surrounded by large industrial pig factories, which ruin their lives. Their houses are impossible to sell. Their social life has gone out of the window due to the unrelenting stench seeping out of the factories.

Over 200 chemical substances are emitted from the stables and it is making the neighbours sick, with numerous peer reviewed studies backing up these claims that there is an increased risk of contracting respiratory illnesses, diarrhea, skin diseases, and headaches.

For too long, national governments have ignored the locals. Now is the time to hear their stories.

  • Kristian Sloth
    Director
  • Kristian Sloth
    Writer
  • Emile Carlsen
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Genres:
    Public Health
  • Runtime:
    28 minutes 12 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 1, 2020
  • Production Budget:
    60,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Denmark
  • Country of Filming:
    Denmark
  • Language:
    Danish, English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Kristian Sloth

1986 Journalist from Danish University of Journalism (DJH)
1986-1994 Manager of Denmark's second largest music festival Midtfyns Festivalen
1994-1995 Journalist at Kolding Folkeblad (newspaper)
1996-2018 Journalist at DR News (Denmark’s Radio & TV)
2018-now Agriculture Campaigner, Greenpeace Denmark

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

As a former investigative TV-journalist for 25 years I am used to picking up good stories by listening to people.

And when I got the job as Agricultural Campaigner for Greenpeace Denmark, I met and listened to quite a lot of people, who live close to large pig factories.

They told me how the stench from the industrial pig production ruins their lives. They feel ashamed when they have guests in the garden and it smells like shit. They cannot hang their laundry outside because it will smell like shit. Their houses and fences have turned green due to the algae that flourish thanks to the ammonia flowing out from the pig stables.

But what struck me the most were their stories about the health problems that they suffer from when the stench is bad. They described the headaches, the stomach aches, the diarrhea, and the breathing difficulties.

The most common stories about industrial pig production are ones that cover pollution, climate change impacts, loss of biodiversity, and poor animal welfare. But here was something new: the pig factories’ close neighbours claimed that they were getting sick from the 200 chemical substances being emitted.

Over time, I managed to speak to more and more pig factory neighbours and everybody more or less had the same story to tell: “When the stench is really bad, we feel sick”.

I decided to dig through the scientific literature to search for evidence and soon found a large number of international peer reviewed studies, which all concluded that there is a link between living near pig factories and an elevated risk of suffering from respiratory illnesses like asthma, as well as skin diseases, diarrhea, and headaches.

Many of these neighbours to pig factories bought their homes decades ago – long before industrial meat production took over much of the Danish countryside. At that time, there were many more family farms where small, mixed species flocks of farm animals were raised. Today, thanks to the industrialisation of meat production, the neighbours live near enormous meat factories containing thousands and thousands of animals. The neighbours’ homes are now impossible to sell and their life quality has also plummeted.

All over the world, ordinary people suffer from the consequences of industrial meat production. This is not least the case in the small country of Denmark home to over 3,000 pig factories and with the highest number of pigs per capita in the world.

Our film has had a surprisingly big impact. In response to the release of Danish version of the film, the Danish Minister for the Environment has hired experts to review all the existing peer reviewed scientific literature in order to establish whether Danish legislation regarding for example minimum distance between farms and private homes and ammonia emission limits needs to be reformed.

I wish to thank the many families that let me into their houses and told me their stories.

Kristian Sloth
Director
October 2020
Copenhagen