Hannes Jaenicke on factory farming in Germany: "This system will disassemble itself!"
Created: 05/31/2022Updated: 05/31/2022 7:38 p.m
By: Rudolf Ogiermann
"I didn't know how similar they are to us in their social behavior": Hannes Jaenicke's documentary about the domestic pig can be seen in the ZDF media library.
© Markus Strobel/ZDF
Hannes Jaenicke is a busy actor - and animal rights activist.
After portraying a number of endangered exotic species over the past few years, his new film focuses on a domestic farm animal most of which is literally a "mess" to keep - the domestic pig.
a conversation
Ever since he saw the inside of a poultry farm in the 1980s, Hannes Jaenicke has stopped eating meat.
"I just feel better when I know that my food hasn't been preceded by any act of killing, no torture, no factory farming," says the busy actor ("The Amsterdam Crime"), who has long since made a name for himself as an environmental activist and animal rights activist.
In recent years, Jaenicke has made documentaries about sharks, elephants and lions, among other things, and now the 62-year-old is
"in action for the pig"
.
After the broadcast on ZDF, the production can be seen in the media library.
So far you have mainly made documentaries about exotic animals in the broadest sense, now you are working on domestic pigs. How did that happen?
Hannes Jaenicke:
We discussed for a long time about bringing the themes of our films a little closer to Germany.
That's why we recently made a documentary about salmon and salmon farms and one about wolves and the discussion about killing them.
It's not for me to point the finger at Africa and say: Oh, but they have to do something about the ivory trade!
It's about our relationship with nature.
This can be well illustrated with the example of factory farming.
There are few countries in the world where animal husbandry has been industrialized as efficiently and cruelly as ours.
They deliberately didn't want to show any shocking images, and they largely stuck it out. Why not?
Hannes Jaenicke:
We've learned - when we started our series in 2006, we worked with shock images.
The prime example was a scene we witnessed rather by accident – a shaved female orangutan being offered for sex for the equivalent of 50 cents in an Indonesian lumberjack shack.
We filmed the confiscation of this animal.
I really wanted that to be in the film because I felt it was the perfect representation of what humans are doing to nature.
The editors were skeptical, but after a long discussion we prevailed.
The viewers then actually switched off or switched at this point.
I can understand that now.
Videos showing whales being harpooned have been around for 40 years.
Is that why whaling stopped?
No!
Just shocking the audience is useless.
we want to take them
What shocked or upset you the most while researching?
Hannes Jaenicke:
I knew that gelatine contained pork, but I didn't know that 7,000 products contain it, for example many cosmetics.
I also didn't know that slaughterhouse waste ends up on fields.
And what surprised you positively?
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Hannes Jaenicke:
How intelligent, social and clean these animals are.
If you give them the chance, so let them roam free, they're a bit like cats.
They find a permanent place to use as a toilet.
And I didn't know how similar they are to us in their social behavior.
In a herd of pigs there are animals that are buddies and those that aren't that interested in each other or avoid each other.
We are just another species on this planet.
If we stopped seeing ourselves as the crowning glory of creation, the world would be a kinder place for everyone.
When asked to reduce the number of animals and increase the quality of the meat, the answer is often that only the rich could afford it.
Hannes Jaenicke:
I think that's wrong.
In Germany, about 50 percent of the food sold is thrown away.
If we really only bought what we eat, we would probably spend a lot less money.
Then we would have smaller quantities but higher quality.
The question is also what priorities we set.
Do we really always need the newest car, the newest mobile phone, the newest television to see the jungle camp a bit more clearly?
Or should we do it like the Italians and the French.
They spend around 25 percent of their income on food every month, the Germans not even eleven percent.
In Germany, food has to be cheap and fill you up.
If we went back to the Sunday roast, it wouldn't hit the welfare recipient any harder either,
Now, with Cem Özdemir, there is a Green Minister of Agriculture. What do you think he should do?
Hannes Jaenicke:
He would have to save the farmers and producers who - we interviewed them - are in despair because they cannot withstand the price pressure from discounters and large producers.
He would have to turn the subsidy policy upside down.
After all, it is subsidized according to quantity and not according to quality.
At the moment, the big ones collect the money and not the small family businesses that keep animals in a species-appropriate manner.
And he has to make people understand that meat is one of the most polluting products.
We discuss road traffic and air travel, but that only accounts for around 18 percent of global CO2 emissions.
Meat production, on the other hand, is 23 percent.
A third of the world's arable land is used solely for the production of animal feed.
What is your prognosis – how will meat consumption continue
?
Hannes Jaenicke:
In a few years it will probably be cheaper to produce stem cell meat in a Petri dish than conventional meat from factory farming.
This system, with its absurd supply chains, rainforest destruction for genetically modified feed soy, breeding factories and industrialized mass slaughter, will dismantle itself because it simply no longer pays off.
And companies like Rügenwalder now earn a fortune with vegan products.
I think things are going in the right direction, so I'm quite optimistic.
There is another way: Pig farmer Manuel Schneider with piglets at Birkeneck farm near Hadamar in Hesse.
© Markus Strobel/ZDF
