In recognition of how environmentally destructive industrial hog farming is, Manitoba has banned the establishment of new farms or the expansion of old ones in the Interlake, Winnipeg, and Red River regions. Operations in other parts of the province will be subject to new rules. The changes were made after a report on the sustainability of the industry was released. Unsurprisingly, industry officials have been condemning the decision.
It is a sad reflection of the state of modern farming that concentrated animal feeding lots produce enough toxic waste to justify such measures.
Some industry professionals will condemn such regulation, but what you don’t hear is the big wigs who support it, who would love to run cleaner, safer, more humane animal production schemes but can’t because it simply isn’t financially feasible on the level they work (there is a non linear jump to the organic, health market).
Trust that for every “industry professional” that’s speaking out, worried about loosing his job, there’s a richer owner, not unconcerned with profits, but who is glad when regulation bans the disgusting parts of animal production.
U. of North Carolina students say no to Smithfield pork
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After dinner, the gathering moved to a large classroom indoors, where the FLO-Fooders had managed to bring together players in Smithfield’s global hog chain that the company would prefer remain invisible: workers from the Tar Heel plant, and people who live in Duplin County, a predominately African-American area where Smithfield and its suppliers raise nearly 2.2 million hogs each year.
(Last year, I profiled Iowa’s most hog-intensive county, Hardin, home to comparatively modest 1 million confined hogs. It was heartbreaking and disgusting to experience the effect of such concentration on the landscape, the air, and people’s lives.)
Duplin resident Devon Hall testified to the horror of living close to knock-you-over stench and toxic hog waste. Smithfield workers including Marvin Steele told of the pork giant’s abysmal disregard for worker safety and ruthless, ongoing union-busting effort.
A Tale of Two Counties
In the farm belt, a look at the extremes of agricultural production
By Tom Philpott
10 Oct 2007
Have you smelled the little piggies?
In eastern North Carolina, citizens and students rise up for environmental justice
Posted by Guest author (Guest Contributor) at 7:12 AM on 17 Jul 2008