20 True Costs of Factory Pig Farming

1. Toxic gasses from intensive pig farms cause neighbouring residents, to suffer from headaches, sneezing, stuffed nose, burning eyes, neurological, respiratory and intestinal diseases.

2. Large pig farms emit hydrogen sulphide; a gas that most commonly causes flu-like symptoms in humans, but at high concentrations can lead to brain damage and rapid death. In 1998, the US National Institute of Health reported that nineteen workers died due to hydrogen sulphide emissions originating from livestock manure pits.

3. Ammonia causes permanent lung damage in one quarter of the workers and respiratory problems in the pigs. In 2004, a pig factory farm in Missouri, USA, emitted 3 times that generated by all industrial sources in the state.

4. Agribusiness giants are rapidly expanding to new countries for industrial hog farming and processing, contaminating water supplies along the way.

5. The runoff from pig factories creates nutrient overload, causing huge fish kills in rivers and coastal waters. Pollution of the Neuse River in North Carolina, USA, caused the deaths of 100 million fish in 2009 alone.

6. Manure runoff can contaminate water with unhealthy levels of nitrates, which have been linked to spontaneous human abortions.

7. In 1998, the US government fined Smithfield 12.6 million dollars for violating the Clean Water Act more than 5,000 times in just five years.

8. To build new factory farms, the world’s largest pig producers scan the globe for good investment climates, i.e. countries with cheap land and labour and lax enforcement of environmental standards. If small scale local farmers don’t intensify production and externalize their true costs onto the broader community, they face bankruptcy.

9. In order to survive, small-scale farmers often enter into coercive contracts with large-scale, vertically integrated factory contractors. These farmers pay much of the start-up and maintenance costs through bank loans, locking themselves into dependence on pork prices dictated by the livestock factories and volatile interest rates. Permanent debt and bankruptcy are common.

10. One billion people are malnourished while one-third of the world’s arable land is devoted to the production of feed crops for livestock.

11. Animal welfare standards are often applied domestically but not to imported meat products. This causes a flood of low-cost, low-quality meat that often drives domestic farmers out of business.

12. To keep the pigs alive in such unnatural conditions, they are subjected to frequent and painful injections of antibiotics and other medication.

13. According to the Union of Concerned Scientist, 24.6 million pounds, or 70% of antibiotics produced in the United States, are applied to the feed of healthy animals. This is to prevent the onset of the inevitable diseases that affect animals raised in intensive units, and to promote growth. The result is antibiotic- resistant bacteria such as E coli, salmonella, campylobacter and the pig strain of MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).

14. Development funds for impoverished communities are often diverted to Big Agribusiness. For example, in 1999 the European Bank for Reconstruction and development (EBRD) awarded Smithfield a $25 million loan for expansion into Poland, and facilitated another $75 million worth from private banks. One of the EBRD’s stated purposes is to promote “environmentally sound and sustainable development.”

15. Industrial pork producers benefit by utilizing cheap soya grown in Brazil on cleared rainforest as feed for the pigs.

16. Because the film Pig Business criticizes its methods, Smithfield threatened legal action in the UK and demanded that sections be removed. The broadcaster complied, fearing an expensive lawsuit.

17. The huge vertically integrated, industrialized and subsidized factory farms undercut local small holders forcing them off the land and destroying communities.

18. Around the world, meat labelling fails to inform consumers of the conditions under which their meat was produced.

19. Growing pigs are crammed into small pens with slatted floors, and on most factory farms in Europe, are illegally deprived of access to straw or other ‘manipulable’ material. They have no bedding, natural light, or fresh air.

20. To prevent tail biting which results from the stress of overcrowding and lack of straw, the pigs’ tails are routinely docked, a practice which is illegal in the EU.