16/11/2025

The footage is new, shot between 2023 and 2025. But the story is always the same, unchanged from what we have been reporting for a decade together with the international organizations we have worked with since 2015.

The new dossier published by Animal Welfare Foundation (AWF) and Tierschutzbund Zürich (TSB), which coordinate a European team of associations including IHP as Italy’s representative, reveals a truth no one wanted to see confirmed: nothing has changed in the South American blood farms. Alongside the print report, an investigative documentary has also been released and is freely available on IHP’s YouTube channel.

Investigators returned to breeding facilities in Argentina and Uruguay to document the exploitation of pregnant mares used for PMSG production, a hormone destined for intensive livestock farming in Europe. What they found is a system frozen in its cruelty, impervious to time, to international denunciations, to regulations, and to promises made by the companies involved.

What Emerges: An Unchanged System of Exploitation

The 70-plus-page dossier describes in detail conditions that violate every international standard of animal welfare:

• emaciated mares, some unable to stand;

• open, infected wounds left untreated;

• lame animals forced to run or travel long distances;

• extreme blood extractions, up to 10 liters per week;

• systematic abortions performed to increase hormonal yield;

• pastures lacking shelter, filled with mud, stagnant and contaminated water;

• beatings with sticks, hooks, ear-twisting, blows to the head;

• a complete absence of medical care and qualified veterinary personnel.

“We documented mares walking on three legs, others with penetrating head wounds, animals left to agonize in the fields,” investigators report. “Every promise made by the companies has remained empty words.”

This new investigation not only confirms what we already know—it makes it worse, showing that in some facilities conditions are even more degrading than in the footage collected in 2015, 2018, 2021, and 2022.

What PMSG Is and Why It Concerns Italy as Well

PMSG—Pregnant Mare Serum Gonadotropin—is a hormone extracted from the blood of pregnant mares.

In Europe and Italy it is used in intensive livestock farming, particularly in the swine industry, to:

• artificially synchronize heat cycles;

• increase the number of ovulations;

• shorten the interval between pregnancies;

• increase the number of piglets born per litter.

In short, it serves to intensify production by further compressing the biological cycles of farm animals.

This industrial model, like all extreme forms of intensification, carries hidden costs—in this case, the suffering of South American mares.

A Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Built on Suffering Is Unacceptable

For years, IHP has called on the Italian government and the European Union to take urgent action. Italy could already block the importation and use of PMSG with a ministerial decree.

The EU, for its part, has tasked EFSA with producing an opinion on the welfare of mares used in PMSG production, but the document will not be released before 2026—a timeline incompatible with the urgency of the situation.

There are no ethical or technical justifications for continuing to use a hormone that entails structural violence. Alternatives exist and have been available for years. What is missing is the political will to acknowledge that part of the European industry relies on an unacceptable practice.

Ten Years of Advocacy: What IHP Has Done

In recent years, IHP has:

• submitted formal requests to the Italian government for the immediate suspension of PMSG;

• collaborated with international organizations in producing and disseminating investigations;

• delivered, together with European partners, over 300,000 signatures to stop blood farms;

• exposed the complete lack of transparency in the pharmaceutical supply chain that imports the hormone into Europe;

• informed citizens and journalists through dossiers, articles, conferences, and video materials.

And it will continue to do so, because this new investigation leaves no room for compromise: there is nothing left to wait for.

A Final Call

We cannot tolerate Italy and Europe turning a blind eye to a systemic abuse that has continued unchanged for a decade.

PMSG production in blood farms is a practice that cannot be regulated or mitigated—it must be abolished. IHP reiterates its call: an immediate halt to production, importation, and use of PMSG; an end to the suffering of mares; an end to blood farms.