Meret Schneider, Green Party member and co-founder of animal rights think tank Sentience Politics, initiated a proposal to ban factory farming earlier this year.
Schneider, who is also the co-founder of the animal rights think tank Sentience Politics, received 60,083 votes in the National Election, taking the fifth seat, Bluewin reports. The Green Party made strong gains in the election, earning a total of 28 seats (13.2 percent of the votes) compared to its previous 11.
Last September, Schneider and other campaigners submitted more than 100,000 signatures for a proposed bill that would ban factory farming nationwide.
“Fifty percent of all piglets raised in Switzerland are slaughtered without ever seeing the sky,” she said in a statement. “Over 80 percent of the chickens kept in Switzerland never stand on a meadow in their life and already reach slaughter weight when they are only 30 days old.”
The initiative was first introduced in June 2018 and aims to amend article 80a of the Federal Constitution. Supporters also argue that factory farming contributes to climate change, water scarcity, and hunger.
“The fact that we were able to submit this initiative so quickly shows how much people in Switzerland care about animals. The majority of them are unaware of the significant amount of individuals that are still being raised in unbearable conditions,” Silvano Lieger, co-director of Sentience Politics, told LIVEKINDLY. “Factory farming is unacceptable — and we should use the power of direct democracy to also make it illegal.”
Parliament will discuss the proposal ahead of a nationwide vote on the ban.
Original source: https://www.livekindly.co