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The Pig Factory: The Cruel and Bizarre Industry Behind Pork Chops and Swine Flu
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
“Industrial farms are super-incubators for viruses,” -Bob Martin, former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production (from wired.com May 1, 2009)
The modern, industrialized American pig lives for about six months from birth to slaughter, during which it spends its entire life eating in a cramped steel and concrete enclosure, paradoxically sterile and yet separated by a steel floor of steel grating, only a few centimeters above a cesspool of the pigs’ own excrement. The scent is so bad that some residents who live downwind from pig farms have tried to get laws passed to protect themselves from the stench. A typical hog in one of these factory farms packs on 50 lbs (23 kilos) a month without even exercising. This lean, tense ball of muscle, is so sensitive to wind blown pathogens, that anyone who comes within 50 meters of the pig must first shower in disinfectant put on what basically looks like a chemical suit.
The Showtime television series This American Life, in a segment for an episode entitled ‘Pandora’s Box’ which originally aired on April 26th, 2007, explores the strange and ghastly evolution of pig farming in America, from its origins as a pastoral, more or less traditional occupation into what would seem to many – whether you eat pork or not – to be an gruesome, scientifically facilitated, commercialized horror.
The Porcine Growth of Pig Farming
In the mid 20th century, one out of every five Americans lived on a farm. Today it’s only about one in every 100. Back then pigs grazed, rolled in the mud, socialized and copulated like regular animals. Factory farming and genetic engineering changed all that. Now the sows never touch a boar and are instead manually inseminated by farm workers armed with pricey designer boar sperm. Their offspring are leaner and more muscular than their natural forebears. But pigs that are bred lean don’t have enough fat to survive living outside during cold winter, so they must be kept inside in heated buildings. Housing them indoors means that the pigs don’t pick up natural immunity to diseases. On top of this they are more or less genetically identical to one another, so – lack of diversity being a genetic weakness – a virus or harmful bacteria strain could infect and wipe out an entire herd. Genetically engineered pigs are also more nervous, which isn’t helped by the horrible conditions they live in, nor the muscle building supplements they’re fed. These paranoid, ultra stressed-out pigs often have muscle cramps or even heart attacks and die on their final – and longest – walk of their lives: the trek from their tiny pens, in which they don’t even have enough room to turn around in, to the truck that transports them to the slaughterhouse.
The This American Life segment was inspired by an article entitled ‘Swine of the times: The making of the modern pig’ by Nathanael Johnson, which appeared in the May 2006 issue of Harper’s Magazine. I’ve taken the liberty of including some quotes from the original article, which can be read in full and downloaded in PDF here.
- A 1997 paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago coolly observed, “The standards set by the largest hog producers now suggest that some 50 producers could account for all the hogs needed in the U.S.”
- But almost all modern farms use low-level antibiotics in feed: besides blocking diseases, antibiotics boost animal growth rates.
- “Tylan [a veterinary anti-biotic] helps minimize attrition losses and maximize economic returns,” one ad reads. “On average, 30–35% of pigs born never reach full-value market weight because they die, are culled or are lightweights at marketing.”
- Instead, workers dispatch sick hogs with a bolt gun, or simply swing the runts by their hind legs against the concrete floor. Healing is inefficient.
- The giant producers reported three times the number of mycoplasma pneumonia cases, more than six times the cases of swine influenza, and twenty-nine times the cases of a new flu strain than did the smaller farms.
The Swine Flu Connection
Used under license from Shutterstock.com
- Scientists have traced the genetic lineage of the new H1N1 swine flu to a strain that emerged in 1998 in U.S. factory farms, where it spread and mutated at an alarming rate. -wired.com May 1, 2009
Geneticists have determined that the H1N1 virus, which is being contracted by humans around the world, in fact comes from pigs. Or did you just think it was a coincidence that it was called “swine flu”? Now, at the risk of sounding reductionist, if pig farms are “super-incubators for viruses” maybe they should be shut down as a form of preventative medicine. Sounds better to me than taking bucket loads of Tamiflu. Naturally the pork industry claims there is no link. I’ll go with the scientists on this one, not because it lines up with my moral compass, but because it’s their job to tell us these things. It’s the pork industry’s job to sell more pork.
I’m not someone who likes trite, unsubstantiated statements like “this is what you get when you play God” or “don’t mess with Mother Nature.” All of us mess with Mother Nature. Some of us are just willing to do more risky, cruel and irresponsible things if it means making a little – or a lot – more money. And it’s this kind of unrestrained behavior that pushes the competition within an industry to do the same – or perish, despite safety warnings from scientists or obscenely obvious moral questions. Anything can be rationalized, even the most shockingly stupid, greedy and cruelest of things. And what’s so wrong about the modern industrialized pig farm is that there is just so much wrong with it that it practically doesn’t need to be argued about. People just need to know about it. Then whatever rationalizations are made afterward are up to the individual. In this current climate of awakening environmental consciousness and possible pandemics, personal choices will hopefully be influenced by concerns about public health and animal welfare and not just money and a taste for bacon.
This American Life: This Little Piggy Made Me Vomit
The soundman is so grossed out by a litter of piglets being birthed onto a steel grate that he loses his lunch and subsequently gives up meat eating. Who wouldn’t, you might ask? Well, not the rest of the show’s production team.
By Graham Land
Additional resources:
Grist.org article linking swine flu to pork industry
Full Wired article: Swine Flu Ancestor Born on U.S. Factory Farms
This American Life: episode synopsis for ‘Pandora’s Box’
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[...] As it turns out, in some cases veal can actually be raised humanely and that chicken, beef, and pork are just as inhumanely raised as traditional veal. Basically, there is no winning. Other than [...]
Wow. Very interesting and informative article. It’s something people don’t want to hear or read about because they’re afraid to change their lifestyles. I wish people would become more informed and conscious about what they choose to eat and where it comes from. Check out this article:
http://www.sierraclubgreenhome.com/go-green/food/healthy-eating/