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Below is translation of July 11, 2017 Press Release from Korea Animal Rights Advocates(KARA): We are exposing the dirty secret of how dog meat farms were able to be formed and operated in South Korea, the only nation in the world where dogs are bred in factory farms in which hundreds or even thousands of dogs are raised by only one or two people. According to Korea Animal Rights Advocates (Director: Soon-Rye Im, hereinafter referred to as KARA), it was discovered that the Ministry of Environment was neglecting to properly manage food waste by allowing illegal disposals. By exploiting the laxity of the Ministry of Environment’s management of food waste, dog meat farms were able to grow to such immensity with free illegal food and livestock waste.

According to the Control of Livestock and Fish Feed Act, for food waste to be processed and distributed as animal feed, it must first be transferred to an authorized recycling facility where it is sterilized and tested for contaminants such as salmonella and residual selenium content. In 2016, 83 of such recycling facilities processed 1.1 million tons of food waste, and distributed to pig farmers 400,000 tons (approximately 37%) of the recycled food waste collected. However, the Ministry of Environment issued food waste processing licenses to dog farm owners who wanted to collect food waste, without ever inspecting or checking these dog farms to ensure compliance of standards. By granting non-discriminatory waste management authority to dog meat farm owners without supervising their abidance of the Control of Livestock and Fish Feed Act, the government contributed to rampant animal abuse, threats to public health, complaints of odor and pests, as well as the environmental pollution caused by the secondary dumping grounds.

Even more serious is the extent of the mismanagement of livestock waste. Management authority of livestock waste, which must be thoroughly recycled or disposed of, was issued to the dog farms, which is like a free pass for prevention of epidemics. This is no different than the complete collapse of the system to prevent contagious zoonotic diseases such as avian influenza. The response of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has been a complete shame with neglect of responsibilities reaching the level of “waste terror”. Remaining unaware of the severity of the situation, they prohibited distribution of recycled food waste wet slops only to poultry, not to dogs.

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Photo: Dog farm in Gwangju, South Korea. Dogs are forced to eat their dead cagemates and rotten food waste slops.  SaveKoreanDogs.org .