Rights for Swedish animals
This scheme was highly commended in the Social Inventions Awards. The certificate went to Astrid Lindgren, author of the Pippi Longstocking children's books. The new Swedish Animal Protection Act, passed by the Swedish parliament, was an 80th birthday present for Astrid Lindgren from the Swedish Prime Minister, and is popularly known as 'Lex Lindgren'.
'Chickens are to be let out of cramped battery cages, cows are to be entitled to grazing space, and sows are no longer to be tethered'
It goes further than anything yet proposed by the UK government: with a ten year time limit for full implementation, chickens are to be let out of cramped battery cages, cows are to be entitled to grazing space, and sows are no longer to be tethered, but must have sufficient room to move, with separate places for eating, sleeping and excreting.
As the Swedish Ministry of Agriculture puts it: 'Hens for egg production are currently battery caged. Four hens are cramped together in a cage which allows each hen a floorspace of roughly the size of a school exercise book. The cages fail to meet even the most basic requirements of the hens - for moving, scratching, flapping, bathing and preening - and for laying. Such a system is unacceptable and must therefore be finally phased out. In future no form of animal husbandry which is so insensitive to the needs of the animals will be permitted'; but then the document concludes rather lamely: 'At present no viable alternative system has been developed, although research in this area is currently under way, notably in Switzerland.'
Astrid Lindgren complains that the new law is not as 'distinct and clear' as she would like, and intends to keep up the pressure with an annual symposium at the Swedish University of Agriculture in Uppsala, to review implementation of the Act. Lindgren was brought up on a farm and says that 'during my childhood cows, horses and pigs were our friends.' Now however she is 'filled with despair at their most appalling living conditions.' She rages against animals being treated not as living creatures but as 'production units' - 'living creatures cannot be weighed, priced and treated in the same manner as other industrialised products, without morally unacceptable results.'
'The campaign grew out of a newspaper article that Lindgren wrote about a cow that had to run more than six miles to find a bull'
The campaign grew out of a newspaper article that Lindgren wrote about a cow that had to run more than six miles to find a bull. Lindgren then joined forces with Christina Forslund, a vet, to prepare a detailed series of articles in the newspaper 'Expressen'. The tremendous public response forced the Ministry of Agriculture to capitulate, despite the assertions of farmers' organisations that food would become too expensive if animals had to be treated decently. But as Lindgren says: 'There is something in life that cannot be accounted for in monetary terms and that is respect for the living, and you can always feel in your heart what is right and what is wrong.'
- Astrid Lindgren, Dalag 46, 113 24 Stockholm, Sweden (tel 46 8308085).
- Further details of the law are in English Press Release No 109, Swedish Ministry of Agriculture, S-103 33 Stockholm, Sweden (tel 8 763 1000).
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