The Plataforma de Jérez del Marquesado contra las Granjas de Cerdos started collecting signatures last Saturday against a planned pig farm.

Their opposition to it is based on possible water contamination seeping into the municipal water supply and basically, the smell and flies.

So far they have collected 500 signatures, only from the town itself, but also from Guadix, Cogollos and Albuñán, because it is perceived that such an intensive-farming infrastructure would also affect their water tables.

The Spokesman for the platform, César Triviño, says that they want to nip the project in the bud and find out exactly what type of farms are set up within the comarca.

The protest movement is not only about collecting signatures, but also stringing banners from their roof tops and balconies with such slogans as “No to Pig Farms” and “Jerez is Not for Sale.”

César Triviño said that they are all in favour of ‘dialogue’ and knows that the comarca needs industries set up (to provide employment) but he says that they must be “sustainable.”

The protest platform came into begin in October after a number of locals reacted against news that a company based in Lorca (Murcia) had requested permission to set up a pig farm to house 750 sows, 2,600 pigets and four boars. Since then they have had a meeting with the ruling party in Jerez (PSOE) and the main opposition party (PP), both of which pledged to veto the installations of this kind of intensive, livestock farming.

Editorial comment: although readers’ first conclusion would be “everybody loves bacon, but they don’t want it sat next to them,” the truth is that it is not pig farms in general but intensive pig farming with such a high concentration of animals cramped together in a limited space, producing a high level of contamination.

(News: Jérez del Marquesado, Guadix, Granada Andalucia)