THE government has this week released details of on-farm inspections from 2015, and they make depressing reading.

Of the hundreds of thousands of animal farms across Great Britain, just 1,681 were inspected throughout the whole year.

Although the figures offer sparse detail, pigs and ‘broiler’ chickens appear to be among the least inspected species, despite them being the most intensively farmed.

Animal Aid has conducted dozens of on-farm inspections over the past decade and found appalling suffering in every pig and chicken farm we have visited.

Sows are still confined inside farrowing crates, suffer greatly from untreated injuries and live all too often in filth and without any meaningful enrichment.

For a nation of animal lovers, their treatment is a scandal.

But so too is the paucity of official inspections when groups like Animal Aid routinely reveal so much suffering on British farms.

Isobel Hutchinson, Head of campaigns, Animal Aid.