One of my favourite projects I’ve been working on recently has been the RSPCA Think Pig campaign. I stopped eating meat when I was nine years old after reading about factory farming, and was vegetarian for 12 years (I’ve since failed, and am now pescatarian / attempting-to-be-positive-chooser). After going around ranting at people demanding that they stop eating meat due to the horrors of factory farming for a few years, and losing lots of friends in the process, I eventually realised that some people will always eat meat. So, if you’re going to eat meat, surely you should try and eat meat where the animals have been treated as well as possible?
That’s what Think Pig is about – raising awareness of the different farming methods, labelling on meat, and what they mean for pigs. There’s a great educational video and animation for the campaign, a downloadable shopping guide [PDF], and lots of other information on the Think Pig campaign site. Our contribution at NixonMcInnes was to create a Facebook Game and Facebook Page for the campaign. The game is a word game – pigs being so intelligent and all – where you get bonus points for answering facts about pigs and pig welfare correctly. People can then share these facts on their Facebook Wall, and ‘Like’ the Facebook Page to keep informed about the campaign progress and to discuss the issues around pig farming and pig welfare.
There’s been some lively debate on the Facebook Page about whether it’s helpful to promote higher welfare for pigs being farmed for meat, if you don’t agree with eating pigs in the first place. However, even though I don’t eat them myself, I’d rather people were well informed so they could make an educated choice about what (if any) kind of meat they eat.