Pigs are among the most cognitively sophisticated farm animals, capable of complex learning, play, and emotional regulation, with welfare systems that frequently fail to meet their needs.
Pig intelligence creates a moral responsibility for farming systems that is frequently unmet. Animals capable of empathy, play, problem-solving, and positive emotional states experience proportional suffering when denied the ability to express these capacities. Barren, enrichment-free environments frustrate highly motivated behavioural needs including rooting, exploration, and social play. Higher-welfare systems providing rooting substrate, social stability, and environmental complexity allow pigs to express their cognitive and emotional capacities. Consumer demand for higher-welfare pork is the most direct lever for system change.