Three years ago, Rotterdam-based architects bureau MVRDV imagined a pig city to change farming production and solve problems such as swine fever and foot and mouth disease. Their idea was to give more space to pigs, letting them live in huge and comfy skyscrapers. Balconies allow the animals to rummage around under trees, an abattoir is housed in the plinth, and animals for slaughter are moved in lifts. There’s even a fish farm that supplies some of the food needed. If pigs are kept in stacked “apartments” in such a way that they enjoy better conditions, the meat tastes better, livestock transport becomes unnecessary, diseases are eliminated, and the Netherlands (European Union’s leading exporter) acquires more space, according to the architects.

Via Pasta & Vinegar. (thxx Russel)

From pigs to chicks…
McDonald’s is currently studying the possibility of “controlled atmosphere killing” in which chickens are gradually deprived of oxygen achieved through the use of an inert gas, such as nitrogen or argon.

It seems that the technique is the least cruel method of slaughter available (the current one is even more atrocious), according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a McDonald’d shareholder, who influenced the decisions of the world’s second-largest buyer of chicken.