Smithfield PORK

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see slaughter meat

see ranching and poultry

primary on hurricane pollution NC

10/14 this is a category for industry

=<div>=</div><div>an the conv 10 22</div><div><div>no lnx vid?</div><div>Supreme Court to hear arguments challenging a California law requiring humane animal treatment</div><div>
</div><div>David Favre and The Conversation October 04, 2022</div><div>   </div><div>Should Californians be able to require higher welfare standards for farm animals that are raised in other states if products from those animals are to be sold in California? The U.S. Supreme Court will confront that question when it hears oral argument in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross on Oct. 11, 2022.</div><div>
</div><div>Pork producers are challenging a law that California voters adopted in 2018 via ballot initiative with over 63% approval. It set new conditions for raising hogs, veal calves and egg-laying chickens, whose meat or eggs are sold in California. The state represents about 15% of the U.S. pork market.</div><div>
</div><div>At most commercial hog farms, pregnant sows are kept in “gestation crates” that measure 2 feet by 7 feet – enough room for the animals to sit, stand and lie down, but not enough to turn around. California’s law requires that each sow must have at least 24 square feet of floor space – nearly double the amount that most now get. It does not require farmers to raise free-range pigs, just to provide more square feet when they keep hogs in buildings.</div><div>
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</div><div>Pork farmers say gestation crates keep pregnant sows from fighting, but animal welfare advocates call the devices inhumane.</div><div>
</div><div>The National Pork Producers Council argues that this requirement imposes heavy compliance costs on farmers across the U.S., since large hog farms may house thousands of sows and that it restricts interstate commerce. The Constitution’s commerce clause delegates authority to regulate interstate commerce to the federal government. In a series of cases over the past 50 years, the Supreme Court has made clear that it will strike down any state law that seeks to control commerce in another state or give preference to in-state commerce.</div><div>
</div><div>Farmers and animal welfare advocates understand that if California wins, states with the most progressive animal welfare policies – primarily West Coast and Northeast states – will be able to effectively set national standards for the well-being of many agricultural animals, including chickens, dairy and cattle. Conceivably, California might also be able to require basic conditions for human labor, such as minimum wage standards, associated with products sold in California.</div><div>
</div><div>Nine other states have already adopted laws requiring pork producers to phase out gestation crates. Massachusetts’s law would also apply to retail sales of pork raised elsewhere, like California’s, but its enforcement is on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the California case.</div><div>
</div><div>States control farm animal welfare</div><div>The main federal law that regulates living conditions for animals is the Animal Welfare Act, which was signed into law in 1966. Among other things, it requires the Department of Agriculture to adopt humane regulations for the keeping of animals that are exhibited in zoos and circuses or sold as pets. However, farm animals are explicitly exempted from the definition of “animal.”</div><div>
</div><div>While the federal government is mute on farm animal welfare, each state clearly has the power to regulate this issue within its borders. For example, in recent years, nine states have outlawed housing egg-laying chickens in “battery cages” that have been the industry standard for decades. These wire enclosures are so small that the birds cannot spread their wings.</div><div>
</div><div>Since many states still permit battery cages, egg-laying chickens’ quality of life depends on the state in which they reside.</div><div>
</div><div>Shelves lined with small wire cages, each holding multiple chickens.</div><div>
</div><div>Chickens in battery cages on an Iowa poultry farm.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>It is also clear that the state of California has no power to adopt laws that are binding on the farmers of other states. This case falls between those two points – here’s how:</div><div>
</div><div>California’s market power</div><div>The California law says that if producers want to sell pork in California, they must raise pigs under conditions that comply with the state’s regulations. Farmers do not have to meet these standards unless they want to sell in California. The same requirement is applied to producers located in California and those based elsewhere, so the law does not directly discriminate between states in a way that would constitute a clear commerce clause violation.</div><div>
</div><div>Producers of eggs and veal who sell in California are on track to implement new space requirements for their animals under the law. In my view, however, much of the pork industry appears to be in denial. Instead of working out how to comply, the National Pork Producers Council wants the courts to set the California law aside.</div><div>
</div><div>Even as this case moves forward, however, major producers including Hormel and Tyson have said they will be able to comply with the California standard. Niman Ranch, a network of family farmers and ranchers who raise livestock humanely and sustainably, has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court supporting California.</div><div>
</div><div>Admittedly, pork farmers have invested millions of dollars in their existing facilities, and the system efficiently produces huge quantities of cheap pork. But Californians have taken the position that this output comes at an ethically unacceptable cost to animals in the system.</div><div>
</div><div>Weighing ethics against compliance costs</div><div>In considering this case, the Supreme Court will confront two questions. First, does California’s requirement constitute a burden on interstate commerce? A U.S. District Court in California held that the answer was no, and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed this ruling.</div><div>
</div><div>There is no magical formula for what constitutes a burden on interstate commerce, so it is impossible to know in advance what the Supreme Court will say about this point of the case. The present court has not addressed this issue.</div><div>
</div><div>If the court should decide that the California law does restrict interstate commerce, it then must consider whether the measure meets the “Pike test,” which was set forth in the 1970 ruling Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc.. In this case, the court held that a state law that “regulates even-handedly” must be upheld unless the burden that the law imposes on interstate commerce “is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” Put another way, is Californians’ social interest in better welfare for pigs substantially outweighed by the economic cost to producers?</div><div>
</div><div>In another 2010 ruling, United States v. Stevens, the court acknowledged that “the prohibition of animal cruelty itself has a long history in American law, starting with the early settlement of the Colonies.” However, the court concluded that depictions of animal cruelty – the plaintiff had been convicted for producing and distributing dogfighting videos – qualified as protected speech under the First Amendment and that this protection outweighed society’s interest in promoting animal welfare.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>This video from the Rodale Institute, a nonprofit that conducts research, training and consumer education on organic agriculture, compares raising pigs on pasture to the large-scale confined model that dominates the pork industry.</div><div>
</div><div>Is a national standard in the cards?</div><div>Many animal welfare questions involve striking this kind of balance between ethical positions and economic consequences in a political context. It is like mixing oil and water, which makes predictions difficult.</div><div>
</div><div>The biggest unknown is what views the newest Supreme Court justices will bring to this case. Only four current justices – John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor – were members of the court when it ruled on the Stevens case in 2010. Will today’s court support California’s right to regulate products sold within its borders, or meat corporations’ economic arguments? How many justices will see farm animal welfare as an important public concern?</div><div>
</div><div>I expect that the court will uphold the California law – and that if this happens, within five years livestock producers will be proposing national legislation setting uniform welfare standards for farm animals. It is impossible to predict now whether a national law would improve animal welfare or adopt existing poor welfare practices.The Conversation</div><div>
</div><div>David Favre, Professor of Law at Michigan State University College of Law, Michigan State University</div><div>
</div><div>This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.</div></div><div>
</div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div>=<div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/trump-administration-meat-industry-covid/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/trump-administration-meat-industry-covid/</a></div><div>
</div><div>former President Donald Trump's administration colluded with top-level meatpacking industry executives to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic in order to drive up prices and downplay the severity of the emergency, according to an exhaustive investigation released on Thursday by the United States House Select Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.</div>Representative Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina), the House Majority Whip and chairman of the Subcommittee, said in a statement that "the shameful conduct of corporate executives pursuing profit at any cost during a crisis and government officials eager to do their bidding regardless of resulting harm to the public must never be repeated."
The probe began last year and uncovered a spider web of corruption and flagrant disregard for human life involving American corporate titans and individuals in the highest ranks of the federal government.Officials at the Department of Agriculture – including Secretary Sonny Purdue and Under Secretary for Food Safety Mindy Brashears – "collaborated" with corporate bigwigs to prioritize profits and production over the safety of employees and the public despite being fully aware of the hazards."Infections and deaths among workers for five of the largest meatpacking companies—Tyson Foods, Inc. (Tyson), JBS USA Holdings, Inc. (JBS), Smithfield Foods (Smithfield), Cargill, Inc. (Cargill), and National Beef Packing Company LLC (National Beef)—were significantly higher than previously estimated, with over 59,000 workers for these companies being infected with the coronavirus and at least 269 dying," the report states.
The powerful cadre also "engaged in a concerted effort with Trump Administration political officials to insulate themselves from coronavirus-related oversight," it explains.In one instance, the chief executive officers of the conglomerates told Purdue on a phone call that their workers “should not be entitled to unemployment benefits if they are otherwise able to work through the pandemic” and cautioned against “creat[ing] an incentive, much less a path, for food industry workers to choose unemployment overproducing food.”In that same conversation, they "implicitly acknowledged how dangerous plants were, asking for liability protection against lawsuits if workers were infected on the job."There was also an aggressive campaign to skirt "pesky" local, state, and federal regulations that would have kept workers and their products safe and healthy."Companies lobbied the White House to make clear that—despite concerns by state and local health departments—meatpacking companies should not have to address coronavirus risks if it would impact productivity," the investigation revealed.Alarmingly, the CEOs managed to successfully lobby Trump to draft and sign an executive order in April of 2020 that "would insulate meatpacking companies from oversight by state and local health departments and provide legal protection against lawsuits for worker illnesses and deaths."The edict led to Trump "invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure meatpacking plants 'continue operations.'"Shortly thereafter, records handed over to the Subcommittee show that "meatpacking industry representatives and companies—Smithfield and Tyson in particular—engaged in constant communications with Trump appointees at USDA, the National Economic Council, and the White House, including calls between Smithfield CEO Ken Sullivan and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; a joint call with Sullivan, Meadows, and Tyson CEO Noel White; a call between White and Vice President Pence’s Chief of Staff Marc Short; and a call from Meadows to White asking if White would be willing to meet with President Trump."Trump subsequently "held a call with officers of the meatpacking companies who had lobbied for it on the morning the order was issued."After Trump granted their wish, an effort was undertaken between the administration and the industry to "coordinate closely on messaging concerning the order and its effects, apparently hoping to generate positive press coverage" for the ex-commander in chief.Worker fatalities, meanwhile, were swept under the rug.In a particularly egregious example, an outbreak at Foster Farms in Livingston, California that infected "at least" 392 workers and killed eight in August of 2020 prompted the company to "intimidate" the Merced County Department of Public Health from shutting down the plant."Foster Farms attempts to obfuscate the death count by labeling fatalities as 'resolutions,'" investigators learned. "MCPH officials told the Select Subcommittee that an unidentified person on the call from either Foster Farms or USDA said these cases could be considered 'toe tag resolutions,' referring to the toe tag that is often put on a corpse at the morgue. MCPH said that Brashears asked this individual to 'stop' and said they would 'talk about this separately.'"Operations at Foster Farms in Livingston were eventually temporarily suspended on August 31st.<a href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/2022.5.12%20-%20SSCC%20report%20on%20Meatpacking%20FINAL.pdf" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Read the full report here</a>.<div>
</div><div>=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">GG</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/10/10/new-documents-reveal-how-the-animal-agriculture-industry-surveils-and-punishes-critics/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://theintercept.com/2020/10/10/new-documents-reveal-how-the-animal-agriculture-industry-surveils-and-punishes-critics/</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-reactid="200" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANIMAL AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY GROUPS defending factory farms engage in campaigns of surveillance, reputation destruction, and other forms of retaliation against industry critics and animal rights activists, documents obtained through a FOIA request from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reveal. That the USDA possesses these emails and other documents demonstrates the federal government’s knowledge of, if not participation in, these industry campaigns.These documents detail ongoing monitoring of the social media of news outlets, including The Intercept, which report critically on factory farms. They reveal private surveillance activities aimed at animal rights groups and their members. They include discussions of how to create a climate of intimidation for activists who work against industry abuses, including by photographing the activists and publishing the photos online. And they describe a coordinated ostracization campaign that specifically targets veterinarians who criticize industry practices, out of concern that veterinarians are uniquely well-positioned to persuasively and powerfully denounce industry abuses.One of the industry groups central to these activities is the <a href="https://animalagalliance.org/initiatives/monitoring-activism/" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Animal Agriculture Alliance</a>, which represents factory farms and other animal agriculture companies — or, as they playfully put it, they work for corporations “involved in getting food from the farm to our forks!” The group<a href="https://animalagalliance.org/initiatives/monitoring-activism/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"> boasts</a> that one of its prime functions is “Monitoring Activism,” by which they mean: “We identify emerging threats and provide insightful resources on animal rights and other activist groups by attending their events, monitoring traditional and social media and engaging our national network."[ Agriculture Alliance website]</div><div data-reactid="203" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2020/10/aaa7.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"> </a><ol><li>Indeed, the Alliance frequently monitors and infiltrates conferences of industry critics and activists, then <a href="https://animalagalliance.org/resource/insights-gained-from-an-animal-rights-conference/" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">provides reports to their corporate members</a> on what was discussed. As The Intercept previously noted when <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/06/07/animal-rights-activists-face-multiple-felony-charges-brought-by-prosecutors-with-ties-to-smithfield-foods/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">reporting on felony charges</a> brought against animal rights activists with Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, for peaceful filming and symbolic animal rescues inside one Utah farm that supplies Whole Foods and another owned by Smithfield — an action that showed how wildly at odds with reality is the bucolic branding of those farms — the Animal Agriculture Alliance <a href="https://www.thefencepost.com/news/animal-agriculture-alliance-concerned-about-animal-rights-activists-extreme-activity/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">issued a statement</a> denouncing the activists for (ironically) harming their animals and urging law enforcement and “policymakers” to intervene on behalf of the industry against the activists.</li></ol>In the emails obtained by the FOIA request, the Alliance and its allies frequently encourage their members to alert the FBI and Department of Homeland Security regarding actions by activists. In response to a project by DxE to create a map tracking factory farms, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/21338903" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Lyle Orwig</a> — chair of the agricultural company Charleston/Orwig, Inc. and a member of the Alliance board — proposed the retaliatory step of “taking photos of every DXE [sic] member” and posting them to the internet while accusing them of being “opposed to feeding the hungry.”...</div></div><div style="font-size: small;">[pigs suffocate covid surplus, she objected]</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What alarmed Dr. Heath most was the emergence online of anonymous flyers which contained a “BEWARE” warning at the top, along with her photo and a string of accusations, some of which were false, that claimed she harbors “an agenda that doesn’t include anything positive for our profession” and “expresses fondness” for “domestic terrorist organizations.” It warned that even allowing her access to the social media pages of veterinarians could be dangerous, and thus urged that she be blocked from all online forums, personal profiles, and social media groups....</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div>===trump ordered workers back to plant under defense? critical infra?!gov said do not need to report covid # under 10%? recrd? export t6o china?
720 ew <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/china-swine-flu-2020-2646296386.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/china-swine-flu-2020-2646296386.html</a> Scientists in China have identified a strain of H1N1 that is rapidly spreading amongst workers in the country's pig farms. They warn that the fast spreading strain of swine flu has pandemic potential, if it is not contained quickly, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/world/asia/h1n1-swine-flu-virus-china-pig.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">The New York Times</a>.<div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2646296386" style="margin-top: -15px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description" style="clear: both;"><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem1" data-id="1" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/china-swine-flu-2020-2646296386.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" data-basename="particle-1" data-post-id="2646296386" data-published-at="1593530472">An outbreak of H1N1 caused widespread fear in 2009 when it killed 285,000 people around the world. The new strain is a derivative of H1N1, according to the scientists who published a paper on it on Monday in the scientific journal <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/23/1921186117#fn-group-1" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a> (PNAS).The disease, which researchers called the G4 virus, now shows "all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus," said the study, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/asia/china-swine-flu-pandemic-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">CNN</a> reported.</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem2" data-id="2" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/china-swine-flu-2020-2646296386.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" data-basename="particle-2" data-post-id="2646296386" data-published-at="1593530472">The researchers say that the disease is not yet an immediate problem, but they noted that pig farm workers also showed elevated levels of the virus in their blood, and that "close monitoring in human populations, especially the workers in the swine industry, should be urgently implemented," as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-pigs/chinese-researchers-warn-of-new-virus-in-pigs-with-human-pandemic-risk-idUSKBN2410BU?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social&fbclid=IwAR0Du67qns-96PMAxQR78rH21UgWcutdgvhFsNQ4YA_8-rv0w2eKO_DcWFw&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Reuters</a> reported.Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University's public health school, urged the public to remain calm and not "freak out," according to CNN."Our understanding of what is a potential pandemic influenza strain is limited," she posted on <a href="https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1277740973087326213" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Twitter</a>. "Sure, this virus meets a lot of the basic criteria but it's not for sure going to cause a hypothetical 2020 flu pandemic, or even be a dominant strain in humans."</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem3" data-id="3" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/china-swine-flu-2020-2646296386.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3" data-basename="particle-3" data-post-id="2646296386" data-published-at="1593530472">Chinese researchers based at several institutions, including Shandong Agricultural University and the Chinese National Influenza Center, discovered the G4 virus during a pig surveillance program, according to CNN. Over a seven-year span, from 2011 to 2018, the researchers took more than 30,000 nasal swab samples from pigs in slaughterhouses and veterinary teaching hospitals across 10 Chinese provinces.Those samples revealed 179 swine influenza viruses, but only a fraction of them posed any concern to the researchers, as several only showed up in a single year while others declined to non-threatening levels.The strain in question though, G4 EA H1N1, has been common on China's pig farms since 2016 and replicates efficiently in human airways, according to the study. So far, it has infected some people without causing disease, but health experts worry that means the virus is lurking and mutating into something different and a sudden change can happen without warning, according to The New York Times.</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem4" data-id="4" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/china-swine-flu-2020-2646296386.html?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4" data-basename="particle-4" data-post-id="2646296386" data-published-at="1593530472">Recent evidence "indicates that G4 EA H1N1 virus is a growing problem in pig farms, and the widespread circulation of G4 viruses in pigs inevitably increases their exposure to humans," the study said.In the last three years of the study, researchers collected blood samples from workers on various pig farms and from people in nearby households. The study found that 10.4 percent of the workers and 4.4 percent of the others tested positive for G4 EA H1N1, and that 20.5 percent of workers between the ages of 18 and 35 tested positive for the virus, as The New York Times reported.</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem5" data-id="5" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/china-swine-flu-2020-2646296386.html?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5" data-basename="particle-5" data-post-id="2646296386" data-published-at="1593530472">"It may be that with further change in the virus it could become more aggressive in people much as SARS-CoV-2 has done," said Ian H. Brown, the head of the virology department at Britain's Animal and Plant Health Agency and one of two scientists who reviewed the paper before it was published, in an email to The New York Times.The good news is that there is no evidence yet that G4 could spread from person to person, the most promising sign so far, according to Carl Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington who spoke to CNN."This is not a new new virus; it's been very common in pigs since 2016," he wrote on <a href="https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1277740955651588096" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Twitter</a>. "There's no evidence that G4 is circulating in humans, despite five years of extensive exposure. That's the key context to keep in mind."</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem6" data-id="6" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/china-swine-flu-2020-2646296386.html?rebelltitem=6#rebelltitem6" data-basename="particle-6" data-post-id="2646296386" data-published-at="1593530472">Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a daily news conference on Tuesday that China was closely following developments. "We will take all necessary measures to prevent the spread and outbreak of any virus," he said, as Reuters reported.Whether or not the virus does spread in humans remains to be seen, but it is a reminder that our <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/factory-farming" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">animal farming</a> practices increase our susceptibility to animal diseases."Pig farming is a massive industry in China and pigs can be important hosts from which novel influenza viruses may emerge," said James Wood, head of veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge, to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/asia/china-swine-flu-pandemic-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">CNN</a>. He added that the study was a "salutary reminder that we are constantly at risk of new emergence of zoonotic pathogens and that farmed animals, with which humans have greater contact than with wildlife, may act as the source for important pandemic viruses."</div><div class="post-pager js-listicle-pager" data-listicle-style="" data-async_load_parameters="platform=desktop&display_ads=1&settings=%7B%22enter_url%22%3A+null%2C+%22no_post_section%22%3A+null%2C+%22ads_breaks%22%3A+%5B2%2C+2%2C+2%5D%2C+%22prevent_last_break_repetition%22%3A+false%2C+%22use_numeration%22%3A+false%2C+%22show_columns_on_mobile%22%3A+null%2C+%22ads_order%22%3A+%5B2%5D%2C+%22turn_into_posts%22%3A+null%2C+%22list_breaks%22%3A+null%2C+%22reorder_voting%22%3A+null%2C+%22cooldown_in_seconds%22%3A+null%2C+%22pagination_order%22%3A+null%2C+%22source%22%3A+%22engine_settings%22%2C+%22next_post_url%22%3A+null%2C+%22up_down_voting%22%3A+false%2C+%22allow_url_change%22%3A+null%2C+%22numeration_sort%22%3A+-1%2C+%22allow_url_update%22%3A+null%2C+%22use_pagination%22%3A+false%2C+%22body_text_above%22%3A+false%2C+%22use_ads%22%3A+true%2C+%22items_as_posts%22%3A+false%2C+%22multiple_answers%22%3A+null%2C+%22no_redirect%22%3A+null%2C+%22is_guest_voting_allowed%22%3A+null%2C+%22layout_type%22%3A+null%7D" style="display: table; width: 753px;"><div class="around-the-web" style="margin-top: 5px !important;"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; visibility: hidden !important; margin-bottom: -5px !important;"><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/factory-farms-antibiotic-resistance-2641508323.html" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">If Factory Farm Conditions Are Unhealthy for Animals, They're Bad ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-wildlife--ecosystem-destruction-2645713976.html" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Coronavirus Pandemic Linked to Destruction of Wildlife and World's ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/jane-goodall-covid19-2645922488.html" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Jane Goodall: COVID-19 Is Result of Our Unhealthy Relationship ... ›</a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; visibility: hidden; margin-top: 20px !important; margin-bottom: -5px !important;"><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/22/21228158/coronavirus-pandemic-risk-factory-farming-meat" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">The meat we get from factory farms is a pandemic risk, too - Vox ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swinefever-china-epidemic-specialrepo/special-report-before-coronavirus-china-bungled-swine-epidemic-with-secrecy-idUSKBN20S189" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Special Report: Before coronavirus, China bungled swine epidemic ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/swine-fever-double-punch-countries-facing-covid-19-threat-200217050557166.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Swine fever: 'Double punch' for countries facing COVID-19 threat ... ›</a></li></ul></div></div></div><div class="tags" style="margin: 20px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/viruses" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">viruses</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-health" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">public health</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pigs" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">pigs</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/china" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">china</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/science" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">science</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/factory-farming" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">factory farming</a></div>

==From kitchen tables worldwide, you can hear a chorus of parents chastising their children with the same refrain: “Stop playing with your food.”<div class="p1_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Children aside, this rebuke needs to be loudly directed at the food fabricators of industrial agriculture. Corporate interests keep toying with the very nature of food — not to benefit consumers, family farmers, workers or the environment, but to fatten the profits of Silicon Valley tech giants, food monopolists and Wall Street financiers.<div class="p2_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Meet Recombinetics, a high-tech gene manipulation corporation with bioengineers in its labs remaking farm animals — pigs, for example. Recombinetics wants to mess with the very DNA of Mother Nature’s oinkers to make them produce bigger litters to supply the pork factories of brand-name marketers. It is also genetically altering milk cows to withstand hotter weather so that climate change won’t reduce the output of huge dairy corporations.<div class="p3_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This re-engineering of nature to build industrial Frankenanimals is being supported by such land-grant colleges as the University of California, Davis — your tax dollars at work! Of course, this corporate-government collusion faces a high hurdle in the marketplace, for consumers have demonstrated again and again that they don’t want the food they put on their tables tampered with by profiteering geneticists. The tamperers, though, have a solution to that problem: secrecy. The industry is lobbying lawmakers and regulators to outlaw any requirement that milk and meat produced by genetically altered animals be labeled as such. Better to keep consumers in the dark because… well, if given a free choice, people might reject Recombinetics in favor of natural food.<div class="p4_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Rather than remake animals and remake the marketplace to benefit corporations that play with our food, let’s remake the corporate system that is trying to industrialize dinner. Corporate manipulators are not out to make food better or more affordable for us, but strictly to make it more profitable for them.<div class="p5_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">How’re you gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen … Angus?<div class="p6_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Not Angus the breed of cattle, and not the time-honored given name of many farm boys, but Angus the 1,000-pound “farmer of the future.” He’s actually not a he, but an it: a robot, toiling away on a hydroponic “farm” that is indoors, soilless and, yes, soulless. Angus is owned and programmed by a multimillion-dollar Silicon Valley startup named Iron Ox, and its homestead is hardly bucolic. It’s in an 8,000-square-foot concrete warehouse in a suburb south of San Francisco.<div class="p7_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This farm bot is more of a heavy lifter than a heavy thinker. Basically, Angus wheels around the warehouse to lift, move and hand off large pallets of basil, bok choy and other produce to another robot that, so far, hasn’t earned a name. The human overseers of this robotic animal farm don’t wear John Deere “gimme caps,” but clean-room hairnets, apparently to prevent anything organic from contaminating the edibles or the robot.<div class="p8_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Started by a Google engineer, Iron Ox hopes to install duplicates of its faux farm in metropolitan areas across the country. The obvious question is, Why? Well, for the greater good, claims the Googlite owner. “If we can feed people using robots, what could be more impactful than that?” Well, reconnecting our food system to nature, a democratic economy and human beings. The roboticists brag that local warehouses can provide fresher lettuce than what megafarms ship from thousands of miles away. But wait! Local farmers markets do that, do it even fresher and keep the consumer dollars in the community rather than siphoned off to Iron Ox and the Wall Street financiers of Angus robots.<div class="p9_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In fact, the robotic indoor farm hucksters quietly concede that their real business plan depends on “sidestepping” the cost of human labor and local farm owners. Instead of spreading wealth to people and communities, their scheme concentrates food profits in a handful of absentee syndicators, rich investors and technology giants.<div class="p10_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Deep in his digital brain, even Angus must know this is stupid.<div class="p11_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Populist author, public speaker and radio commentator Jim Hightower writes “The Hightower Lowdown,” a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by America’s ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at <a href="https://www.hightowerlowdown.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">HightowerLowdown.org</a>.=we grow subsidized GMO corn to feed to pigs that china does not want? --? 12/18.<div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-funding-restrictions-are-preventing-scientists-figuring-out-whats-fouling">https://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-funding-restrictions-are-preventing-scientists-figuring-out-whats-fouling</a></div><div>Our nation’s first national river, the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/buff/index.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Buffalo River</a> in Arkansas, was <a href="https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/sep/16/more-at-risk-20180916/?opinion" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">befouled</a> last summer by algae that sickened people, but the U.S. Geological Survey under Trump can’t decide if a nearby pig farm and <a href="https://buffaloriveralliance.org/resources/Pictures/Smolen%20Final%20Report%20CandH%20Reg%205%20Permit.pdf" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">more than 3 million gallons of pig waste</a> each year are to blame.</div>“If there’s more money, we’d love it,” Justus said.<a href="https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/billy-g-justus?qt-staff_profile_science_products=3#qt-staff_profile_science_products" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Biologist Billy Justus</a> said the agency <a href="https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/nov/25/probe-area-of-buffalo-tainted-20181125/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doesn’t have the funding</a> to do the research to figure out whose pollution caused the algae to grow.Cousins Jason Henson, Philip Campbell and Richard Campbell own <a href="https://www.sos.arkansas.gov/corps/search_corps.php?DETAIL=384501&corp_type_id=&corp_name=C+%26+H&agent_search=&agent_city=&agent_state=&filing_number=&cmd=" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">C&H Hog Farms</a> which was awarded an operating permit by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality in 2012. The state recently <a href="https://www.baxterbulletin.com/story/news/local/2018/11/29/baxter-county-court-hog-farm-lawsuit-mountain-home-adeq-buffalo-national-river/2141016002/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">denied</a> the business a new permit, but the farm is continuing to operate while it fights that decision.The hog farm supplies the U.S. operations of JBS SA, the world’s largest meat processor. In Brazil, police recently <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-09/jbs-tycoon-joesley-batista-arrested-again-in-corruption-probe" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">arrested a controlling shareholder</a> of the firm in connection with an investigation into illegal campaign contributions.Former President Richard Nixon signed legislation in 1972 putting the Buffalo River in the stewardship of the National Park Service. The river runs for 153 miles from its <a href="https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River/detail/id/2545/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">start</a> in the <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2014/03/15/arkansas-boston-mountains-are-ready-explode/1EG04vLHm08P4Yk7OxCo4O/story.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Boston Mountains</a> through limestone bluffs and forests before joining the White River. People were baptized in the Buffalo River. Tourists <a href="https://www.ouachitamaps.com/Buffalo%2001%20West.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">hike</a> along the Buffalo or kayak on it.Former NASA astronaut <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/jim-reilly" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Jim Reilly</a> was confirmed by the Senate in April to lead the U.S. Geological Survey.The Trump administration’s lack of interest in determining whether pig shit is contaminating our nation’s first national river is just one more example of Trump and his administration coddling up to polluters. Trump <a href="https://www.dcreport.org/2017/05/11/national-monuments-on-death-watch/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">shrunk</a> Bears Ears National Monument in Utah which could be explored for oil drilling and <a href="https://www.dcreport.org/2018/11/20/zinke-is-ready-to-hand-over-vast-alaska-wilderness-to-energy-companies/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wants to lease 2.85 million acres</a> of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve.“People swim, fish, and paddle in the Buffalo River, and may be subject to <a href="https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2016/arkansas-groups-vigorously-oppose-no-significant-impact-finding-for-industrial-hog-facility-in-buffalo-river" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">contact with untreated swine waste,”</a> said Dane Schumacher of the<a href="https://buffaloriveralliance.org/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Buffalo River Watershed Alliance.</a>The hog farm is on Big Creek near Mount Judea in Newton County, 6.6 miles upstream of the Buffalo River. The liquefied manure is temporarily stored in holding ponds before workers spray it on fields.The Buffalo River area is riddled with caves and sinkholes in land that water flows easily through. Many Newton County residents get their drinking water from wells.Scientists injected dye into wells near the hog farm and found the ground was <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/green-life/buffalo-river-hog-cafo-threatens-america-s-first-national-river" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">so porous</a> that the colored water flowed into sinkholes and then beneath the Buffalo River and also migrated upstream.<div>
</div><interaction data-token="5b96855f8198b4e625350260" data-context="true" data-tags="" data-fallback="true" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div></div>kpfa waterkeeper corp farms the contracter owns only the poo, kept poor so lagoon/spray only option (spray before hurricane t lower levels)also coal ash<h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-florence-factory-farms-2604600085.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;">Will Hurricane Florence Flood North Carolina Factory Farms and Manure Pits?</a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2604600085" data-authors="Environmental Working Group" data-headline="Will Hurricane Florence Flood North Carolina Factory Farms and Manure Pits?" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><div class="widget__brief">When Hurricane Matthew hit North Carolina in 2016, it flooded more than 140 feces-strewn industrial-scale swine and poultry barns, more than a dozen open pits brimming with liquid hog waste and thousands of acres of manure-saturated fields. As <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-florence" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Hurricane Florence</a>—far bigger than Matthew—bears down on the state, <a href="https://www.ewg.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Environmental Working Group</a> (EWG) and <a href="https://waterkeeper.org/campaign/pure-farms-pure-waters/north-carolina/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Waterkeeper Alliance</a> are prepared to again assess the impact on North Carolina's concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs....</div></div></div>=crony capitalism?<div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/fake-news-and-other-white-meat-how-pork-became-poultry-and-why-it-matters">https://www.alternet.org/fake-news-and-other-white-meat-how-pork-became-poultry-and-why-it-matters</a></div><div>
</div><div>Back in the '90s, I spent an inordinate amount of time on two wildly unproductive pursuits: exploring the brave new world of the Internet, and arguing with people about the nature of pig meat. The more time that passes, the more I see how closely those two obsessions were related. Because whenever I hear someone parroting the phrase "<a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/04/28/what-trump-really-means-when-he-cries-fake-news/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fake news</a>," a little part of me always hears "other white meat."</div>If we were to put pork on trial, I know that my case against its status as white meat would not be airtight. More than 30 years ago, the New York Times noted that the dictionary itself "lumps pork right in the white meat category along with chicken and turkey" <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/white%20meat" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">(albeit secondarily)</a>. And as <a href="https://www.salon.com/2014/05/14/mark_bittmans_semi_vegan_revolution/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a casual meat eater</a> myself, my primary focus when approaching food is usually just whether it's an animal or not. But the well-strategized evolution of pork, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/04/business/media/the-pork-industrys-other-white-meat-campaign-is-taken-in-new.html?mtrref=undefined&gwh=14AE7DD10A171338A3762C4B45471935&gwt=pay" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">over an iconic 18 year-long campaign</a>, was one of my first lessons in how profoundly public perception could be shifted profoundly, through the simple act of repetition.Back in olden tymes, pork was uncontroversially considered a red meat, like beef or lamb. The reasons for the classifications are not singular: it was a means of <a href="https://asktheexpert.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1357/_{/is-pork-white-meat%3F}" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">distinguishing a certain type livestock</a> from others like poultry, and also identifying foods with <a href="https://meat.tamu.edu/ansc-307-honors/meat-color/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a higher myoglobin content</a>, which gives them <a href="https://nypost.com/2017/05/18/that-red-juice-oozing-out-of-your-steak-isnt-blood/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a redder pigment</a>. But regardless of the reasoning, there wasn't much semantic debate over it, because meat ruled as the thing most likely to be found in the middle of your dinner plate.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 20px;">Then the health conscious '70s and '80s came along, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/06/27/155527365/visualizing-a-nation-of-meat-eaters" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a new supermarket favorite</a> went bok bok bok all the way home. Facing rising more demand for low-fat consumer goods and rising poultry consumption, in 1987, food trend experts estimated that chicken was poised to "push pork out of second place in consumer hearts" behind beef. That year, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/15/business/advertising-dressing-pork-for-success.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the National Pork Producers Council rolled out an efficient new motto: "Pork. The other white meat."</a> As the Times reported back then, an extravagant television and print campaign recast pork as a healthy, modern dish, one lower in fat and calories than its reputation would have you believe. "If you serve chicken because it's light and nutritious, <a href="https://www.vintagepaperads.com/1987-National-Pork-Producers-Council-Ad--Pork-Tetrazzini-Recipe_p_127119.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">you should serve the other white meat, pork</a>, for the same reasons," boasted one early magazine ad. Pork was porky no more.The strategy was a hit — over the next five years, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/13/garden/and-this-little-piggy-is-now-on-the-menu.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">pork sales would increase by 20 percent</a>. (Five years later, the beef industry, taking a different approach, would patriotically declare of its product that <a href="https://youtu.be/CN_86_PjRvY" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">"It's what's for dinner."</a>) A 2000 study ranked "the other white meat" as the "<a href="https://www.pork.org/about/towm/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">the fifth most memorable promotional tagline in the history of contemporary advertising</a>."Not everyone, however, was swallowing the tetrazzini, and some nutritionists argued the campaign was "misleading."  Jayne Hurley, a nutritionist for the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, told the Los Angeles Times in 1991 that <a href="https://articles.latimes.com/1991-01-06/business/fi-10985_1_pork-producer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the industry had "not proved" that pork was truly "the other white meat</a>."The pork biz wasn't just talking the white meat talk, though. It was changing the nature of the product itself. In less than a decade, pork had become roughly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/13/garden/and-this-little-piggy-is-now-on-the-menu.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">31 percent leaner</a>, thanks to "breeding and a lower-fat diet." And that leanness also made for a lighter colored product.Yet the distinctions around cuts and preparations have not always been clearcut in consumer minds. I still remember arguing with a friend in Boston that a plate of ribs was never going to be "white meat," and that this was the hill I'd gladly die on. I remember rolling my eyes when a dieting family member justified ordering a pulled pork sandwich because, "You know, it's white meat." "According to whom?" I'd replied, in the same combative mode I usually reserve for debating <a href="https://www.salon.com/2012/12/19/love_actually_the_worst_christmas_movie_ever/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the artistic merit of "Love, Actually</a>."I'm not entirely sure why the pork thing still makes me want to fight so vehemently about it. After all, I've accepted that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/12/09/166665795/forget-extinct-the-brontosaurus-never-even-existed" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the dinosaur brontosaurus</a> and <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/pluto/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">planet Pluto</a> that I grew up with have undergone some dramatic rebranding over the years. Maybe it's because I feel bad for the pigs. Others with more expertise than I certainly have their own thoughts. The D'Artagnan brand offers a history lesson on pigs and pork on its site, and advises that "The <a href="https://www.dartagnan.com/history-of-pigs-and-pork.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bland, pale meat of the factory-farmed pig is really not worth eating</a>." Iowa State's Pork Industry Center says that "<a href="https://www.ipic.iastate.edu/porkbridge/pb0208porkquality.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Pork that is very pale in various studies results in diminished eating quality</a>." AnimalSmart suggests your pork "should be a nice reddish pink color to a purplish red. People think you want to pick lighter colored pork, but it is the opposite. <a href="https://animalsmart.org/feeding-the-world/products-from-animals/how-to-select-the-best-pork" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The darker the pork is, the better</a> it will taste if cooked properly." And Vice has explained why <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8q8984/why-animals-that-died-scared-taste-bad" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">stressed out animals make paler, less flavorful meat.</a> In other words, ask yourself why you'd really want the creature who gives you bacon and ham to be "white meat" in the first place. (If need be, feel free to also interrogate why you think "<a href="https://www.salon.com/2010/09/16/us_fea_food_gluten_free_boom/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">gluten free</a>" means "<a href="https://www.salon.com/2014/10/27/a_gluten_free_cake_is_still_a_cake_how_our_latest_nutritional_bogeyman_duped_us/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">nutritionally superior</a>.")But I think the deeper reason I get so uppity is that over time, pork has become my metaphor for something seemingly becoming real because it's said often enough. You know why Michael Jackson is the King of Pop? Because he decided he was and then got people to repeat it a lot. In the early '90s, he<a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/why-michael-jackson-is-called-the-king-of-pop?utm_term=.pg30DbaKx#.ca69WlpzJ" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> dubbed himself  with that title</a> and insisted that MTV refer to him by it. Now, even in death, the legitimacy of his crown remains undisputed.More recently, <a href="https://www.flanewsonline.com/howard-faked-her-diploma/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Florida House candidate Melissa Howard was caught falsifying information</a> about her college education and then turned around to <a href="https://www.flanewsonline.com/howard-faked-her-diploma/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">accuse the media reporting it of "fake news</a>." It wasn't hard to tell where she learned that doublethink can be incredibly effective. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Truth is fake. Lies are alternative facts. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/politics/trump-lester-holt-nbc/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">An unedited tape is "fudged</a>." Pork is poultry, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/us/missouri-meat-law-tofurky.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytfood" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">not-meat is meat</a>, maybe?In the abstract, any brand — whether it's an industry or an individual — can choose its own descriptors. So what if what was once red is now deemed white? How different is that from a mint proclaiming itself a "freshmaker"? Or a beer anointing itself "the champagne" or "king" of beers? It's all just adjectives anyway. But the pork thing has always stuck with me, and always made me deeply uneasy. I can <a href="https://mandelaeffect.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Mandela effect</a> as well as the next guy and I only earlier this month learned that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/08/22/a-woman-who-is-feeling-something-is-a-bitch-our-love-hate-affair-with-the-female-body/?platform=hootsuite" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">perspiration does not detoxify</a>. I bring my own bias and half baked bag of baggage to the table every time. Yet I also watched, for two decades of my own life, how people could go from believing one thing to another, based not so much on evidence but just hearing it confidently and frequently told to them. And if we can be that swayed about a grocery store product, well, just imagine the havoc that somebody with real life and death power, dominating a 24/7 news cycle, could wreak by using the same two-word soundbite, again and again, for every challenge to his authority.<div>
</div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/factory-farming-air-pollution-lawsuits-2583239804.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/factory-farming-air-pollution-lawsuits-2583239804.html</a></div><div>
</div><div>Rural Americans Breathe Life Into the Fight Against Factory Farm Polluters</div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2583239804" data-authors="The Conversation" data-headline="Rural Americans Breathe Life Into the Fight Against Factory Farm Polluters" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description" style="">By Sacoby WilsonAs U.S. livestock farming becomes more industrial, it is changing rural life. Many people now live near Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)—large facilities that can house thousands of animals in close quarters. Neighbors have to contend with noxious odors, toxic emissions and swarms of insects, and have had little success in obtaining relief—but this could be changing.On April 26, Murphy Brown LLC, a division of Smithfield Foods, was required to pay <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article209927914.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$75,000 in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages</a> in a nuisance lawsuit filed by ten residents of Bladen County, North Carolina over impacts from a nearby hog farm. On June 29, another North Carolina jury <a href="http://amp.newsobserver.com/news/local/article214096384.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">awarded $25 million</a> to a couple in Duplin County in a similar lawsuit against Smithfield Foods. Other cases are pending in <a href="https://civileats.com/2018/05/16/iowa-residents-to-sue-state-over-air-emissions-from-industrial-hog-farms/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">North Carolina and Iowa</a>.Smithfield Foods is the largest hog processor and producer in the world, so these verdicts are major victories for people organizing against industrialized animal agriculture. Based on my experience <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UQTOm4gAAAAJ&hl=en" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">studying environmental health at the community level</a>, I see them as breakthroughs after decades of government failure to protect rural communities from negative impacts of CAFOs.Threats to Health and the Environment
Iowa and North Carolina are the largest pork-producing states in the nation. Hog farms generated <a href="https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resources/Rankings_of_Market_Value/Iowa/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$6.8 billion in sales</a> in Iowa in 2012 and <a href="https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resources/Rankings_of_Market_Value/North_Carolina/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$2.9 billion</a> in North Carolina.They also produce massive quantities of waste. Unlike human biosolids, which must meet regulatory standards for pathogen levels, vector attraction reduction and metal content, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wh.2010.075" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">no such standards are required for CAFO waste</a>. Studies have <a href="http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/UNC-Report.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">linked</a> exposure to hog farm emissions, such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, to symptoms including increased stress, anxiety, fatigue, mucous membrane irritation, respiratory conditions, reduced lung function and elevated blood pressure.Hog waste can contaminate ground and surface water reserves through runoff, leaching and rupturing of storage facilities. High quantities of nitrates and phosphates, from both animal waste and fertilizers used to grow feed, can also contaminate rivers and streams.<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.8839" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bacteria and residual antibiotics</a> present in hog waste have the potential to cause acute illness and infection, as well as <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antibiotics" style="text-decoration-line: none;">antibiotic</a> resistance. Rural communities are especially vulnerable to water contamination because many rely on private well water, which is <a href="https://www.epa.gov/privatewells" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">not regulated by government agencies</a>.<div class="share-tab-img share-buttons share-trigger" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; overflow: hidden;"><img class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9QWNUU1530965074" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="7e4fe" src="https://assets.rbl.ms/18143787/980x.png" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%;" /><div class="share-media-panel">U.S. hog farms are concentrated in the Midwest and Southeast.Impacts Beyond the Farm
The Bladen County lawsuit charged that waste management techniques employed by Kinlaw Farm, a local hog producer for Murphy Brown LLC, put neighbors' health at risk and severely lowered their quality of life. The farm stored liquid manure in on-site lagoons and sprayed it on local fields as fertilizer.High volumes of waste and frequent mishandling exposed nearby residents to <a href="https://www.indyweek.com/news/archives/2018/04/05/how-smelly-is-too-smelly-what-we-learned-from-the-first-two-days-of-the-murphy-brown-hog-nuisance-trial" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">noxious odors</a>. The lagoons attracted swarms of insects onto neighboring properties, and plaintiffs complained in the lawsuit that trucks packed with dead animals drove through the neighborhood at all hours of the day.Such conditions characterize the lives of people who live close to CAFOs. People who cherish the freedom of rural life are anguished when pollution and overpowering smells make it impossible to perform everyday tasks and engage with their community. Many feel imprisoned within their own homes.In May 2018 Shane Rogers, a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EPA</a>) and USDA environmental engineer, published an <a href="http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/brief-exhibit-dr-rogers-report.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">air quality investigation</a> that provided evidence to support the nuisance lawsuit. Using samples collected from the air and exteriors of homes neighboring Kinlaw Farm, Rogers was able to isolate hog feces DNA at 14 of the 17 homes tested. All six of the dust samples collected from the air contained "tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of hog feces DNA particles."Based on such high concentrations, Rogers deemed it highly likely that these contaminants could enter the houses. The presence of fecal matter in homes may provide grounds for a trespassing claim, as it falls under the definition of a physical invasion of another person's property[vid]pork producers respondAlthough the North Carolina settlement is a major step forward for rural communities, the industry is pushing back. Smithfield Foods has <a href="https://www.smithfieldfoods.com/newsroom/press-releases-and-news/smithfield-foods-extended-statement-regarding-mckiver-v-murphy-brown-verdict" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">condemned</a> such lawsuits as "nothing more than a money grab by a big litigation machine." The company asserts that because Kinlaw Farm fully complied with all federal, state and local laws and regulations, such lawsuits only threaten the livelihoods and economic prosperity of thousands of North Carolinians employed by the industry.A few weeks after the April verdict, the judge <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article210747979.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reduced the settlement</a> from $50.75 million to $3.25 million, pursuant to a North Carolina law which caps punitive damages at either three times the amount of compensatory damages awarded or $250,000. This allotment does not address community members' suffering, and jurors were unaware of the law limiting punitive damages when they reached their decision.In response to 23 nuisance cases filed by more than 500 residents, the North Carolina legislature recently voted to expand its <a href="http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4880&context=nclr" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">right-to-farm law</a>, <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article150016642.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">overriding Gov. Roy Cooper's veto</a>. These laws were originally designed to protect farms from people who moved in nearby and then complained about noise and odors. However, industries in some agricultural states have pushed legislatures to expand the statutes to <a href="https://thefern.org/ag_insider/north-carolina-legislators-move-to-tighten-right-to-farm-law/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">make it harder to sue CAFOs</a>.An Underregulated IndustryIn my view, current measures in place to protect rural communities from factory farms are grossly insufficient. CAFOs have been defined as <a href="https://www.epa.gov/npdes/animal-feeding-operations-afos" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">point sources of pollution</a> under the Clean Water Act for more than 40 years. This means they should have to obtain permits to discharge waste into river, streams or surface waters. But due to industry pushback, lobbying and privacy concerns, it is estimated that <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-05/documents/tracksum_endyear_2017.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">only 33 percent of CAFOs operated with such permits</a> as of 2017.Environmental advocates also contend that CAFOs qualify as <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060001938" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">stationary pollution source</a> under the Clean Air Act. Instead, the EPA has pursued a voluntary approach for more than a decade that centers on <a href="https://www.epa.gov/afos-air/national-air-emissions-monitoring-study" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">studying how to monitor CAFO air emissions</a>.In sum, I see governmental agencies as complicit within a system of production that prioritizes private interests rather than the well-being of communities and the environment. Research has shown that these operations <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/108/3/ehp.00108225.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">disproportionately burden communities of color in rural North Carolina</a>, so this is a major environmental justice issue.In order for CAFOs and communities to coexist harmoniously, the entire structure of the present food system must change. In addition to strengthening regulations on factory farm emissions and discharges, I think regulators should provide incentives for CAFOs to invest in sustainable technologies and alternative waste management systems.These farms should also be offered incentives to publicly report quality and safety data and expected impacts on host and nearby communities. This kind of information would increase rural residents' negotiating power.Given the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump</a> administration's anti-regulatory slant and proposed budget cuts, the federal government is unlikely to lead in this area. However, the North Carolina verdicts and pending cases in Iowa could lead to greater industry transparency and empower more rural citizens to take action against CAFOs in their communities.</div></div><div>=</div><div>cult corrup winow --> smash and grab?</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/scott-pruitt-epa-industry-2575035190.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/scott-pruitt-epa-industry-2575035190.html</a></div><div>
</div><div>see below</div><div>
</div><div>New Reports Highlight Industry Influence on EPA Head Pruitt</div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2575035190" data-authors="Olivia Rosane" data-headline="New Reports Highlight Industry Influence on EPA Head Pruitt" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description">New evidence emerged Friday and Saturday revealing how U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EPA</a>) Administrator <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scott-pruitt" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Scott Pruitt</a>'s close relationships with industry leaders and lobbyists might impact his environmental decisions.On Friday, the lobbying firm Williams & Jensen disclosed evidence that its former chairman J. Steven Hart, whose wife <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/pruitt-corruption-scandal-condo-2555549162.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">rented a Washington, DC condo to Pruitt</a>, did in fact lobby the EPA on behalf of three clients during Pruitt's tenure despite his denials, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/390344-firm-discloses-more-epa-lobbying-by-advocate-with-ties-to-pruitt" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Hill reported</a>.  Then, on Saturday, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/02/us/scott-pruitt-coal-joseph-craft.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: center; text-decoration-line: none;">The New York Times</a> broke the news that Pruitt had attended a University of Kentucky basketball game in December in special, front-and-center seats belonging to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" target="self" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: center; text-decoration-line: none;">coal</a> billionaire Joseph W. Craft III, whose close relationship with Pruitt had not been previously examined.Hart, who stepped down from Williams & Jensen in April, told E&E news in March that he did not lobby the EPA in 2017 or 2018. But lobbying disclosures released hours after his departure revealed he did contact the EPA to lobby for Smithfield Foods during that period.In Friday's disclosures to the Senate, the firm revealed further that Hart did more for Smithfield Foods that previously believed and also contacted the EPA on behalf of Coca-Cola and the Financial Oversight and Management Control Board of Puerto Rico.The new information turned up after Williams & Jensen hired Jan Baran at Wiley Rein to review Hart's schedule and communications, as well as the firm's disclosure filings, from 2017 and the first three months of 2018, to make sure the firm was accurately disclosing Hart's activity.Hart and others lobbied the EPA for Coca-Cola on "environmental issues impacting the beverage industry; clean water supply and water conservation," according to the updated disclosures.The EPA told The Hill that the inclusion of Coca-Cola was an error."This meeting involving Coca-Cola and their clean water steward did not occur," EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement. "The request was submitted and it went unfilled."The disclosures said that lobbying by Hart and others for Coca-Cola to the EPA and other government agencies and Capital Hill also included "general market access issues in foreign countries; Commerce 232 investigations, including re: aluminum" and "[e]nvironmental issues impacting the beverage industry, including hydroflourocarbon replacement; commodity pricing legislation."In 2017, Hart also lobbied the EPA for more potable water for Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, on behalf of the Financial Oversight and Management Control Board of Puerto Rico.Even if he wasn't an official lobbyist, coal executive Craft's close ties to Pruitt suggest <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fossil-fuel</a> industry influence on key deregulatory moves such as October's repeal of the Obama-era <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/clean-power-plan-repeal-2494810040.html" target="_self" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Clean Power Plan</a>, which Pruitt announced in Craft's hometown of Hazard, Kentucky with Craft in the audience. Craft also served on the board of an industry group that urged the EPA to postpone enforcement of a rule preventing coal plants from dumping toxic metals into rivers, a request Pruitt honored in September, The New York Times reported.The New York Times further uncovered the fact that Pruitt had met with Craft at least seven times during the first 14 months of his tenure at the EPA, more than he met with any environmental advocate. The two are close enough to be on texting basis, and their relationship has deep roots: Craft was a major donor to Pruitt's state government campaigns in Oklahoma.Heath Lovell, vice president for public affairs at Craft's company Alliance Resource Partners, told The New York Times that Pruitt paid "market value" for the basketball tickets.The game was not included on Pruitt's official calendar, but was videotaped and mentioned in university communications requested by The New York Times through public records requests. According to those communications, Kentucky state police provided additional security for Pruitt during the trip, backing up his own detail.</div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div><div></div><div><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/superbug-pig-farms-2131983846.html">http://www.ecowatch.com/superbug-pig-farms-2131983846.html</a></div><div>
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</div><div>Rare and Deadly Superbug Mysteriously Appears on U.S. Pig Farms</div><div></div>==aha unexpected ripple effects
<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-matthew-flooding-factory-farms-2045975366.html" class="external text" title="http://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-matthew-flooding-factory-farms-2045975366.html" rel="nofollow">Billions of Gallons of Animal Waste From Factory Farms Poses Health Risks in Wake of Hurricane Matthew</a> see climate change and <a href="https://www.ic.ucsc.edu/college8core/c8wiki/index.php/Category:Food" class="external text" title="https://www.ic.ucsc.edu/college8core/c8wiki/index.php/Category:Food" rel="nofollow">Food</a> and <a href="https://ic.ucsc.edu/college8core/c8wiki/index.php?title=Category:Water" class="external text" title="https://ic.ucsc.edu/college8core/c8wiki/index.php?title=Category:Water" rel="nofollow">Water</a> 10/16.

berman bsHands Off My BaconHands Off My Bacon is a project of the Center for Consumer Freedom representing the interests of pork producers that celebrates bacon consumption and attacks animal rights activists and public health advocates.
Maternity PensMaternity Pens is project of the Center for Consumer Freedom and HumaneWatch that defends the use of gestation crates used by pork producers and criticizes the arguments of animal rights activists.http://earthjustice.org/blog/2015-december/hogwash-from-the-pork-industry... Pork Council’s voicemail doesn’t mention any of those problems, preferring to focus on jobs and wages instead. But even there, the message rings hollow. In Duplin County, North Carolina, where there are more pigs per capita than anywhere else in the country, median household income is only about $34,000 (that’s household income, not individuals’ wages), and more than a quarter of the population <a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37/37061.html" style="line-height: 28.8px; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">lives in poverty</a>. Meanwhile, the handful of corporations that control U.S. pork production are raking in billions of dollars in revenue every year. You can bet that that money isn’t staying in the local economy—especially since Smithfield Foods, which runs the world’s largest slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, North Carolina, was purchased by a Chinese holding company in 2013.The consolidation of the pork industry hasn’t been good for the family farm.  As is true in most of the country, the number of <a href="http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resources/Highlights/Hog_and_Pig_Farming" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">farms and farmers in North Carolina</a> has been steadily decreasing, while the average <a href="http://www.ncagr.gov/paffairs/release/2014/2-14ag-census.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">size of farms has gotten larger and larger</a>. The number of North Carolinians employed by hog farming makes up less than one half of one percent of the state’s population (<a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37000.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">9.94 million people as of the 2014 census</a>).In part, the decline is occurring because it’s harder and harder to make a decent living as a farmer, thanks to the dominance of big agribusinesses. These days, most hog farmers don’t own the hogs they raise. Rather, the farmer is under contract with a multinational corporation, which owns the hogs from conception to slaughter and dictates exactly how the farmer must raise them. In this scheme, the farmer does most of the work and bears most of the costs and risks, but the corporation gets most of the profits.The North Carolina Pork Council probably wouldn’t be paying for thousands of robo-calls if they weren’t desperate to make a bad industry sound better than it is. Don’t believe the hype—North Carolinians deserve better. That’s why Earthjustice is partnering with state and local organizations to stand up for clean air, clean water and accountability from these so-called “integrator companies” that own the hogs “from squeal to meal.” We’re also taking on the hog industry on civil rights grounds for the impact hog feces and urine have on nearby low-income communities of color. Join us in sending the pork industry’s propaganda out to pasture.rfk2:
John Graham's central role is undermining environmental protection through ‘research' papers based on cost-benefit analysis. John Graham has blocked every rule change that protects the environment including two dozen proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Rules John Graham has fought to have rescinded include reduced arsenic levels in drinking water, reduced pollution from coal burning plants and regulation of fecal waste from industrial factory farms. 
{Cost-benefit analysis = only 50 humans out of a thousand will die prematurely from cancer over the next five years and the cost to save the 200,000 thousand or so people that will die prematurely would require entire industry upgrades costing 200 billion dollars or a million per individual saved from premature death and is therefore not economically feasible. Since American aristocracy can and does chose to live far from toxic polluters their chance of dying from cancer due to toxins approaches zero. Must be nice!} 
"Factory farmed animals such as cattle, pigs and chickens, live in unnatural and cruel conditions, which do not allow them to live the way nature intended. Factory farmers treat them as commodities rather than living, breathing, sentient beings that feel pain and suffer, just as we do. It's time to make changes, not just because of the harm to our health and environment but because having respect for all beings will help create a more humane world." - Valerie Belt 
Wise Use ideology has engineered the passage of laws in Missouri and Iowa making it a crime to photograph industrial factory farm animals! 
{The 2009 swine flu pandemic started at a Smithfield Foods - the world's largest pork packer and hog producer - massive hog-raising operation in Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz. A Smithfield subsidiary, Granjas Carrol, raises 950,000 hogs per year. Residents of Perote believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area which polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies and in turn led to the disease outbreak.
A municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the industrial pig farms. According to residents the organic and fecal waste produced by Granjas Carrol isn't adequately treated. Swarms of flies hovering around waste lagoons transfer respiratory ailments. 
Mexican health agency Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social has acknowledged that the original carrier for the flu could be the "clouds of flies" that multiply in the Smithfield subsidiary's manure lagoons. 
The increased use of antibiotics in animal production has gone hand-in-hand with the development of factory farms - industrial-style livestock operations. Thousands of animals are crammed into the unhygienic, crowded quarters of a typical industrial-style livestock operation, and antibiotics are dispensed constantly through the animals' feed. 
Twenty-five million pounds of antibiotics are fed to livestock in the United States annually - eight times more than the amount used as human medicine. Six of the 17 classes of antibiotics used to promote growth in animals are also used to treat diseases in humans. A Harvard University study showed that antibiotic-resistant genes found in bacteria infecting humans were identical to some of the same bacteria infecting animals. 
The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production recommended: "Ban the non-therapeutic use of antimicrobials in food animal production to reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance to medically important antibiotics and other microbials." 
In 1998 in the nation's largest pig farm, a North Carolina factory farm, an aggressive H3N2 virus of a never-before-described triple hybrid of three viruses - a human virus, a pig virus and a bird virus - was discovered. 
"Recently evolving intensive farming practice of raising pigs and poultry in adjacent sheds is unsound. Within the swine population, we now have a mammalian-adapted virus that is extremely promiscuous." - Dr. Robert Webster, world's leading flu virus evolution expert
"If you wanted to create global pandemics, you'd build as many of these factory farms as possible. That's why the development of swine flu isn't a surprise to those in the public health community. In 2003, the American Public Health Association - the oldest and largest in world - called for a moratorium of factory farming because they saw something like this would happen. It may take something as serious as a pandemic to make us realize the real cost of factory farming." - Dr. Michael Greger
Industrial farming has also been labeled as CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations).
"Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu drug, said in an interview that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus's origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint." - Jason Gale and Simeon Bennett}
Thirteen states have laws making it illegal to criticize produce!http://www.alternet.org/environment/male-fish-north-carolina-rivers-found-have-female-parts<ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px 20px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: square;">The HSUS has worked with dozens of the nation’s leading food retailers – from Costco to Kroger to Burger King – to phase out their purchase of pork from operations who confine the sows in gestation crates. This list now includes the biggest names in pig production – Smithfield, Cargill, and even Tyson – all of which have made pledges on this front. Berman’s calling card for years was his cachet with the food and restaurant industry, yet he’s been an abject failure in his attempt to preserve the status quo. His cynical attempt to rename gestation crates as “maternity pens” has gone nowhere. Our campaigns have also led the entirety of the veal industry to convert to crate-free by 2017. And we are seeing major movement in the egg industry away from extreme confinement, especially since we crushed Berman and others in the fight over Prop 2 in California in 2008.</li></ul>==

<h1 class="title" itemprop="name" style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1; letter-spacing: -0.05em; position: relative; text-transform: none; font-variant: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NC Supreme Court a 'virtual sinkhole' for environmental law, and it could get worse</h1>

The North Carolina Supreme Court has racked up an "extraordinary record of hostility" to the environment in major cases it's considered over the past 15 years -- and with the seven-member court's three Democrats facing tough re-election challenges this year, it could soon get even more inhospitable to environmental concerns.

So concludes a <a href="http://www-assets.vermontlaw.edu/Assets/directories/FacultyDocuments/Echeverria_StateJudicialElections.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">study</a> released this month by John Echeverria, a professor at Vermont Law School and a former attorney for the National Audubon Society and American Rivers. He looked at the judicial electoral process in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Montana and Washington -- states that use either a partisan or nominally non-partisan method for selecting judges for their high courts -- in order to identify changes in the ideological direction of the courts' decisions.

In North Carolina, where high court elections are nominally nonpartisan, Echeverria considered a total of seven environmental law cases during that period. They pertained to the state law designed to limit sediment pollution in waterways, open burning rules, water quality standards, and hog farm regulations.

"Over the last fifteen years, in every instance in which the Court has reviewed a major environmental law issue, the Court has sided with the anti-environmental protection side of the dispute," Echeverria writes.

He notes that the probability of the court ruling against the environment in all seven cases is 1 in 128 -- "long odds indeed." North Carolina's high court, he says, "has become a virtual sinkhole for environmental law."

Echeverria explores the connection between the court's hostility to environmental claims and financing of state judicial elections. In 2004, North Carolina implemented a public financing program that was used by 80 percent of judicial candidates and curbed special-interest spending in campaigns. That program was repealed in 2013, a move that has <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2014/10/with-public-financings-demise-special-interest-mon.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">increased the flow</a> of corporate special-interest dollars into judicial elections.

At the same time, independent groups have increased their spending on North Carolina judicial races. In 2012, super PACs and other outside groups <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/11/big-money-plays-big-role-in-north-carolina-electio.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">spent nearly $3 million</a> on just one N.C. Supreme Court race, with about 90 percent of the money benefiting conservative justice Paul Newby. In this year's primary, outside groups <a href="http://www.followncmoney.org/race/nc-supreme-court-associate-justice-hudson-seat" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">spent almost $1.3 million</a> to unseat Associate Justice Robin Hudson -- a registered Democrat who was elected in 2006 and who Echeverria found has been the sole dissenter from the court's pattern of weakening environmental protections.

Hudson faced a heated primary challenge from conservative trial judge Eric Levinson and Jeanette Doran, chair of the N.C. Division of Employment Security Board of Review. Doran is also a former staff member of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, a limited-government advocacy group founded and funded by influential conservative money man Art Pope, who as former state budget director <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2013/06/how-art-pope-killed-clean-elections-for-judges-in-.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">played a key role</a> in killing the judicial public financing program.

The primary race featured a controversial ad attacking Justice Hudson for being "soft on child molesters," leading one political observer to <a href="http://www.reflector.com/opinion/mooneyham/mooneyham-politicizing-judicial-races-2465375" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">call it</a> "perhaps the most despicable advertisement ever aired in the state." That ad was sponsored by Justice for All NC, an outside spending group funded by the Republican State Leadership Committee, which in turn has received major contributions from corporations with a financial stake in cases that may come before the N.C. Supreme Court. They include Koch Industries, the Kansas-based oil and chemical conglomerate that has operations in North Carolina, and North Carolina-based Duke Energy, which currently has a case related to groundwater contamination from its coal ash ponds before the high court after the justices <a href="http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2014/10/10/state-supreme-court-takes-five-controversial-cases-bypassing-the-court-of-appeals/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">exercised their discretion</a> to take the case away from the N.C. Court of Appeals.

At the same time Justice for All NC was running the controversial ad attacking Hudson, the NC Chamber IE, the independent expenditure arm of the NC Chamber, was running positive ads supporting Doran and Levinson. Koch Industries was also among the companies that contributed to the NC Chamber IE.

Echeverria observes:

An undisclosed subtext of the attacks on Justice Hudson is that she is the single justice on the present Court who has distinguished herself by voting in favor of environmental protections in the cases that have come before her.

</blockquote>

In the end, Hudson survived the primary. She is now facing off against Levinson in the general election -- a contest that’s shaping up to be North Carolina's <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2014/10/with-public-financings-demise-special-interest-mon.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">most expensive state court race</a>this year.

Echeverria found that the last time the N.C. Supreme Court handed the environmental side a win was 1998, when a majority of justices rejected a legal challenge to the revocation of an aerial pesticide applicator's license for violating state regulations.

Four years earlier, the court handed down another major environmental ruling in <a href="http://law.justia.com/cases/north-carolina/supreme-court/1994/570pa93-2.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">Empire Power Co. v. N.C. Department of Environment</a>, upholding the right of citizens to go to court to protect themselves from air polluters. Reversing the N.C. Court of Appeals, the high court held that the owner of land next to a proposed power plant was entitled under state law to challenge the department's issuance of an air pollution control permit to Duke Power.

But that precedent is now threatened by a similar case involving property owners and environmental groups challenging state's air quality permit for a new cement manufacturing facility in New Hanover County.

Last year an administrative law judge, siding with the state Division of Air Quality, arrived at what Echeverria calls "the novel conclusion" that in order for a person to challenge an air emissions permit he must show how much additional pollution would be produced and what specific injuries would result. The N.C. Environmental Management Commission upheld the judge's ruling, and the plaintiffs filed an appeal in Superior Court. That case could eventually make its way to the N.C. Supreme Court, which would have the chance to reverse its Empire Power ruling.

While Hudson's re-election would be no guarantee that wouldn't happen, her loss would make it even more likely that it would.

"Given the current and likely future makeup of the Court, Justice Hudson would be unlikely to sway the Court in many environmental cases," Echeverria concludes, "but at least she can -- if reelected -- serve as a counterweight to the other justices on the Court who appear to have less sympathy for environmental protections."

</div></article>

</div>

<div class="asset-meta" style="margin: 5px; padding: 8px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"> <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/users/sue-sturgis" title="View user profile." style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;">Sue Sturgis</a> on <span class="date-submitted" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Thu, 10/23/2014 - 14:</div>

</div>

==

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods">http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods</a>

----

mithfield Foods, one of the country's biggest pork producers, is no stranger to accusations of animal abuse. Animal rights advocates have gotten ahold of videos that seemed to implicated Smithfield pig producers in animal cruelty. But the criticism reached a fever pitch this year when <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/04/mcrib-lawsuit-humane-society-smithfield-farms_n_1075992.html" target="hplink">the Humane Society targeted McDonald's</a> for using Smithfield pork in its notorious McRib sandwiches. Since then, Smithfield reported a steep decline in profits -- and announced <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/08/smithfield-gestation-crates_n_1136567.html" target="hplink">its plan to eliminate gestation crates by 2017</a>. Too little, too late?

===

Those investigating large corporations also run the risk of being sued for libel. Swedish journalist Fredrik Gertten was targeted by US fruit company Dole Food in 2009 after releasing a documentary, Bananas!,examining the risks to plantation workers' health from pesticides used on company farms. Dole launched a lawsuit against the Gertten documentary and lobbied the Los Angeles Film Festival to have that documentary removed from its bill, leading to allegations of censorship. It was screened but not as part of the main festival competition.

Similarly, UK filmmaker Tracy Worcester's Pig Business documentary was the subject of several legal threats by pork giant Smithfield Foods in 2008 and 2009. The company sent four letters to Channel 4 threatening legal action, the last of which was sent an hour before the film was broadcast. As a result of the letter, Channel 4 delayed broadcast of the film and footage was removed in order to make one of the perpetrators less identifiable. The lawyers acting on behalf of the company also contacted London's Barbican arts centre, claiming the film was defamatory and asking them not to show it. The screening only went ahead after Worcester agreed to indemnify the Barbican.

===

Joseph W. Luter III

Born: <a href="http://www.nndb.com/lists/716/000106398/" class="proflink">17-Jul</a>-<a href="http://www.nndb.com/lists/938/000105623/" class="proflink">1939</a>

Birthplace: <a href="http://www.nndb.com/geo/601/000098307/" class="proflink">Smithfield, VA</a>

Gender: Male

Race or Ethnicity: White

Sexual orientation: Straight

Occupation: Business

Party Affiliation: Republican

Nationality: United States

Executive summary: CEO of Smithfield Foods, 1975-2006

Father: Joseph W. Luter Jr. (co-founder of Smithfield Foods)

Wife: (1st, two daughters, one son)

Son: Joseph W. Luter IV

Wife: Karen (2nd)

University: <a href="http://www.nndb.com/edu/689/000068485/">BBA, Wake Forest University (1962)</a>

Administrator: <a href="http://www.nndb.com/edu/689/000068485/">Trustee, Wake Forest University</a>

<a href="http://www.nndb.com/company/658/000062472/">Smithfield Foods</a> CEO (1975-2006)

<a href="http://www.nndb.com/company/658/000062472/">Smithfield Foods</a> President (1966-69, 1975-95, 2000-01)

Member of the Board of <a href="http://www.nndb.com/company/658/000062472/">Smithfield Foods</a> (as Chairman 1975-)

<a href="http://www.nndb.com/org/882/000117531/">American Meat Institute</a> Executive Committee

<a href="http://www.nndb.com/org/398/000167894/">Every Republican is Crucial PAC</a>

<a href="http://www.nndb.com/org/796/000169289/">Friends of George Allen</a>

<a href="http://www.nndb.com/org/944/000172428/">Good Government for America Committee</a>

<a href="http://www.nndb.com/org/023/000354955/">Romney Victory Inc.</a>

<a href="http://www.nndb.com/org/230/000168723/">Santorum 2006</a>

Smithfield Foods

is based in Smithfield, Virginia. The company is the world's largest hog producer and pork processor, largely due to acquisitions. Products include over 50 brands of fresh pork and processed pork products sold under the brand names Armour, Stefano's, Farmland Foods, John Morrell, Lykes, Patrick Cudahy and Cumberland Gap. Smithfield's specialty foods division offers nuts, desserts and dressings. The company distributes its meats in the United States and internationally; predominately in Mexico, Western Europe, the United Kingdom, Poland and Romania. Smithfield ranks number 163 in Fortune 500 companies. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-0">[1]</a>

In the fiscal year ending in April of 2010, the company reported sales of approximately $11.203 billion dollars and had 48,000 employees.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-1">[2]</a>

<h2>Contents</h2>

[<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#" class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>] </div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Overview">1 Overview</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Employee_.26_human_rights_issues">2 Employee & human rights issues</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Anti-union.2C_intimidation_.26_safety">2.1 Anti-union, intimidation & safety</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#UFCW_.26_Paula_Dean">2.2 UFCW & Paula Dean</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Toxic_holding_pond_deaths">2.3 Toxic holding pond deaths</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Animal_welfare_issues">3 Animal welfare issues</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Cruelty_investigation_of_Smithfield_supplier_.28NC.29">3.1 Cruelty investigation of Smithfield supplier (NC)</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Smithfield_reneges_plans_to_phase_out_gestation_crates">3.2 Smithfield reneges plans to phase out gestation crates</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-9"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Cruelty_investigation_of_Smithfield_supplier_.28VA.29">3.3 Cruelty investigation of Smithfield supplier (VA)</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Environmental_issues">4 Environmental issues</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-11"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#CEO_Joseph_Luter_defeats_attempt_to_clean_up_pit_lagoons">4.1 CEO Joseph Luter defeats attempt to clean up pit lagoons</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-12"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Fined_for_violations_of_the_Clean_Water_Act">4.2 Fined for violations of the Clean Water Act</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-13"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Smithfield_funded_study">4.3 Smithfield funded study</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-14"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Sierra_Club.27s_.22Ten_Least_Wanted.22_list">5 Sierra Club's "Ten Least Wanted" list</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-15"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#International.28outsourcing.26_Swine_flu.29">6 International (outsourcing & Swine flu)</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-16"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Mexico">6.1 Mexico</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-17"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Romania">6.2 Romania</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-18"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Poland_.26_Romania">6.3 Poland & Romania</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-19"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Violation_of_anti-trust_laws">7 Violation of anti-trust laws</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-20"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Financial">8 Financial</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-21"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Lobbying">8.1 Lobbying</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-22"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Political_contributions">8.2 Political contributions</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-23"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Personnel_.26_board">9 Personnel & board</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-24"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Key_executives_.26_pay">9.1 Key executives & pay</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-25"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Board_members">9.2 Board members</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-26"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Contact">10 Contact</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-27"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#Articles_.26_sources">11 Articles & sources</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-28"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#SourceWatch_articles">11.1 SourceWatch articles</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-29"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#References">11.2 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-30"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#External_articles">11.3 External articles</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-31"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#External_resources">11.4 External resources</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2>Overview</h2>

Smithfield controls 26% of the U.S. pork market, raising 14 million pigs at it's facilities and killing 27 million of the 60 million that went to slaughter in 2006. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-2">[3]</a>

The company has long been the world's largest pork packer. More recently it has become the world's largest hog producer. The combination of farming and meat packing is unique and has radically altered the pork business. In recent years the company has also acquired beef operations. It is the fifth largest beef packer and a leading producer of deli meat and processed foods. Since 1981 when it was a regional pork producer, it has made over 20 acquisitions and expanded operations and exports abroad. The company's growth has been largely unimpeded by anti-trust actions. A 2003 acquisition of the bankrupt Farmland Foods elevated Smithfield from 20% to 27% of the market; without a murmur of protest from the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Department_of_Agriculture" title="U.S. Department of Agriculture">U.S. Department of Agriculture</a> (USDA). The <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Environmental_Protection_Agency" title="Environmental Protection Agency" class="mw-redirect">Environmental Protection Agency</a> (EPA) campaign against massive water pollution from its North Carolina and Virginia factory farms was soft pedaled; in spite of hog waste run-offs that turned rivers into toxic dumps. The company also struck down state laws prohibiting meat packers from owning the animals they slaughter.

Smithfield's hog farmers are employees running large, centralized factories specializing in one product. The demise of the Farmland pork cooperative may have been the last gasp of the independent farmer. While other meat packers have an oligopoly toward their farmers, Smithfield owns them outright. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-3">[4]</a>

<h2>Employee & human rights issues</h2>

<h3>Anti-union, intimidation & safety</h3>

In 2004, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Labor_Relations_Board" title="National Labor Relations Board">National Labor Relations Board</a> found that Smithfield had used intimidation to derail a 1997 union election at the Tar Heel plant through threats, spying and firings. A federal appeals court upheld a 2006 decision which concluded that the company had engaged in "intense and widespread coercion” and ordered the reinstatement of four fired workers. One of the fired workers had been beaten by the plant's police on the day of the election. The union failed to organize that year.

<h3>UFCW & Paula Dean</h3>

In the Spring of 2007, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) attempted to get celebrity chef Paula Deen to sever her ties with Smithfield. Ms. Dean had been a paid spokesperson since the Fall of 2006 and is the first personality to become entangled in a union dispute. During a sold out book tour in New York City in April, approximately two dozen people supporting the unionization of the huge Tar Heel, NC plant, held a prayer vigil out side of the Museum of Natural History. As she responded to audience questions, a union member tried to speak and deliver a letter. Leila McDowell and former Smithfield employee Lenore Bailey were ushered out. According to a news release from Ms. Dean:

<dl>

<dd>“Now, I’m not an expert on the union situation but here’s what I do know: I know the folks at Smithfield care about their employees and work hard to support the communities where they live, work and raise their families.”</dd>

</dl>

After the incident, the North Carolina Council of Churches sent a letter to Ms. Dean describing conditions at the plant. The letter included a report based on data from the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Occupational_Safety_and_Health_Administration" title="Occupational Safety and Health Administration">Occupational Safety and Health Administration</a> (OSHA). According to the data, worker injuries were up 200 percent since 2003. The company claimed its injury rate was no different from the industry average. The union vowed to continue demonstrating at Ms. Dean's book tours, on a larger scale.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-4">[5]</a>

<h3>Toxic holding pond deaths</h3>

There have been several deaths related to Smithfield's toxic holding ponds or lagoons. According to a December of 2006 expose by Jeff Tietz published in Rolling Stone, after a driver and his truck went over the side of a Smithfield lagoon in Oklahoma, it took almost three weeks to retrieve his body. In 1992 a worker repairing a lagoon in Minnesota began choking to death on the fumes. After another worker dove in after him, he also succumbed to the fumes and both died. In Michigan a worker overcome by fumes from a lagoon fell in. Several relatives dove in to save him and were also overcome by fumes and died. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-5">[6]</a>

<h2>Animal welfare issues</h2>

According to one Smithfield worker describing the brutality:

<dl>

<dd>“The line is so fast that there is no time to sharpen the knife. The knife gets dull, and you have to cut harder."</dd>

</dl>

Pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated, fed and delivered of their piglets in cages too small to turn around in. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment and trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. Floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a pit underneath. Many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits, including afterbirths, still born piglets and piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide and antibiotic syringes; anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. Pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond. Temperatures in hog houses often exceed 90 degrees. The air is so saturated with dust, excrement and chemicals that enormous exhaust must run 24 hours a day. If they break down for any length of time, pigs start to die off. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-6">[7]</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-7">[8]</a>

<h3>Cruelty investigation of Smithfield supplier (NC)</h3>

From September 13 to November 2 of 2007, an investigator from <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/People_for_the_Ethical_Treatment_of_Animals" title="People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals">People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals</a> (PETA) worked as an entry level "herd technician 1" at Murphy Family Ventures pig breeding farms and slaughterhouses, under contract with Smithfield. In the video, pigs have the word "KILL" spray painted on their backs and screech as they're dragged to slaughter with a heavy metal prodder attached to their legs, ears and snouts. Women laugh as they castrate piglets without anesthesia or painkillers. According to the investigator:

<dl>

<dd>"One female employee told me that was her stress relief for the week. That's the type of person doing those jobs. ... The treatment of the baby pigs shook me the most."</dd>

</dl>

He also witnessed piglets' tails being sliced off, (a general practices at swine slaughterhouses). According to PETA spokesperson Matt Prescott:

<dl>

<dd>"We believe that these acts of abuse constitute a violation of state animal cruelty laws. Employees were gouging out the eyes of pigs and violently dragging animals by an ear or a snout or a leg. A supervisor admitted on camera to viciously attacking pigs with metal rods."</dd>

</dl>

The group requested that workers filmed abusing pigs be charged with animal cruelty; a misdemeanor in North Carolina. According to the investigator, he quit the $7 an hour job out of fear that his coworkers had become suspicious, as he was the only one not physically abusing pigs. According to the group, the investigation was originally instigated in August by a tip from a former Murphy Family Ventures employee.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-8">[9]</a> According to spokesperson Don Butler:

<dl>

<dd>"Non-conformances to the company's animal welfare policy were found. Appropriate actions have been taken, including termination of those who violated the policy."</dd>

</dl>

Employees caught on hidden camera brutally abusing pigs were fired, though it wasn't known how many. Several were filmed dragging and beating swine, gouging out their eyes and castrating piglets without painkillers. The prosecutor's office in Sampson County, NC opened an investigation after PETA lawyers turned over affidavits and videotapes. According to the PETA employee, speaking with <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fox_News" title="Fox News">Fox News</a> on December 12 2007:

<dl>

<dd>"(The abuse) happened every day. You can't even capture the full horror of what goes on there."</dd>

</dl>

PETA requested Smithfield and its contractors to more aggressively enforce humane treatment of the animals. They also requested the company install surveillance cameras and conduct regular internal undercover investigations as well as a ban on gestation crates.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-9">[10]</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-10">[11]</a>

<h3>Smithfield reneges plans to phase out gestation crates</h3>

In June of 2009, Smithfield announced it could not afford to go through with its highly publicized animal welfare improvements. The company announced it would delay plans to replace “gestation crates” for pregnant sows with more humane “group housing." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-11">[12]</a> Previously, in January of 2007, the company had announced a 10 year phasing out of gestation crates. Crates are used to keep pregnant and nursing sows immobile during the course of 3 years of their typically four year life span as breeding sows. During this time, they typically give birth and nurse 5 to 8 litters of about a dozen piglets. All 187 Smithfield owned pig nurseries and Smithfield contract farms were scheduled to move sows to group pens. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-12">[13]</a> At the time, Smithfield concluded that the crates could be replaced with group pens without any long term problems or cost increases. According to CEO C. Larry Pope:

<dl>

<dd>"Working with our customers, who have made their views known on the issue of gestation stalls, we are pleased to be taking this precedent-setting step."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-13">[14]</a></dd>

</dl>

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/McDonalds" title="McDonalds" class="mw-redirect">McDonalds</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Walmart" title="Walmart" class="mw-redirect">Walmart</a> reportly requested that Smithfield and other pig producers quit using gestation crates after a panel concluded they were inhumane and unnecessary. The panel was appointed by McDonald's, as part of a 1994 negotiation with Coalition for Nonviolent Food founder Henry Spira, who died in 1998. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-14">[15]</a> (However, McDonald's has ignored advice from its own consultant, that there are reliable sources of of humanely raised cows and pigs if the restaurant chain would commit to purchasing them.) <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-15">[16]</a>

When Smithfield executives announced plans in 2007 to phase them out, they refused to admit they were inhumane. Rather, they attributed their decision to consumer preference. A sow living in a typical industrial facility will spend the majority of her life confined to these metal and concrete stalls. She will have barely enough room to lie down and not enough room to turn around in. Several states legally banned gestation crates and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/European_Union" title="European Union">European Union</a> (EU) has required farmers to phase out all gestation crates by 2013.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-16">[17]</a>

<h3>Cruelty investigation of Smithfield supplier (VA)</h3>

<div class="thumbcaption">HSUS undercover investigation of Smithfield Foods. - November 2010</div>

</div>

In December of 2010, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Humane_Society_of_the_United_States" title="Humane Society of the United States">Humane Society of the United States</a> (HSUS) released findings from a month long undercover investigation of a Waverly, Virginia contract farm owned by Smithfield subsidiary Murphy-Brown. Breeding sows crammed into gestation crates and barely able to move for virtually their entire lives, engaged in neurotic behaviors such bar biting. Some so incessantly that blood ran from their mouths and coated the fronts of their crates. The sows suffered injuries from sharp crate protrusions and open pressure sores from extreme confinement and immobility. A veterinarian was never seen on the premises during the entire course of the investigation. During the investigation, a barn manager advised the investigator to ignore a sow with a basketball sized abscess on her neck. He then proceeded to cut the abscess open with an unsterilized razor. In another incident, employees used gate rods on a lame sows neck and back in an effort to force her to move. On three occasions, the investigator informed employees that a pig was thrown into a dumpster alive. The animal had been shot in the forehead with a captive bolt gun (to render it unconscious) before being thrown into the dumpster. Other abuses included mishandling and throwing piglets into carts. Prematurely born piglets fell through slats in gestation crates and into manure pits below. According to HSUS President & CEO <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wayne_Pacelle" title="Wayne Pacelle">Wayne Pacelle</a>:

<dl>

<dd>"If this is the best that Smithfield can do, it is evident that there are terrible problems in the nation's pig industry. It is indefensible for Smithfield to allow its sows to linger in crates barely larger than their bodies for months on end. ...Now that Smithfield just posted its highest ever quarterly profit, it's a good time to make a public pledge to honor its previous commitment. The company can no longer claim that economic circumstances don't allow for facility improvements. Other large pork producers, such as Maxwell Foods, are already gestation crate-free, while <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cargill" title="Cargill">Cargill</a> is 50 percent gestation crate-free."</dd>

</dl>

Photos and video footage revealed approximately 1,000 large breeding sows. Sows are trapped in their crates for the entire duration of their four month pregnancies. After giving birth, they are moved into a crate large enough to nurse for about 3 weeks before again being artificially inseminated and forced back into gestation crates. In one video, a large, lame pig with the word "kill" spray painted on its back is dragged by the snout after being shot in the head with a stun gun. The struggling pig is thrown into a large trash bin, then breathes heavily as it lay dying and surrounded by dead pigs. According to Dennis Treacy, chief sustainability officer, the company is "conducting its own investigation", adding that:

<dl>

<dd>"We provide regular training to our employees on our animal welfare policies and procedures, and we have zero tolerance for any behavior that does not conform to our established animal well-being procedures."</dd>

</dl>

Veterinarian Richard Wilkes from the state's Department of Agriculture visited the farm subsequent to the findings. Animal welfare expert Temple Grandin was also assisting in the investigation. Law enforcement is set to determine if criminal charges are to be filed. To date, seven states, Florida, Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Maine and Michigan; have legally banned gestation crates. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-17">[18]</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-18">[19]</a>

See also <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Animals_raised_%26_hunted_for_food" title="Animals raised & hunted for food">animals raised & hunted for food</a> on pigs.

<h2>Environmental issues</h2>

Smithfield churns out a sea of waste that has destroyed rivers, killed millions of fish and generated one of the largest fines in the history of the EPA. The company slaughters approximately 27 million hogs per year, each hog with a slaugter weight 50% heavier than a person. The logistical challenge of processing that many pigs per year is roughly to butchering and boxing the entire human populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Columbus, Austin, Memphis, Baltimore, Fort Worth, Charlotte, El Paso, Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston, Denver, Louisville, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Las Vegas, Portland, Oklahoma City and Tucson.

Smithfield actually faces a more difficult challenge even than transforming the populations of America's 32 largest cities into packages of meat. Hogs produce three times more excrement than human beings. The 500,000 pigs in a single Smithfield subsidiary in Utah generate more fecal matter every year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of Manhattan. Best estimates put Smithfield's total waste discharge at 26 million tons a year (enough to fill four Yankee Stadiums.) Even when divided among the many small units that surround the company's slaughterhouses, this is not a containable amount. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-19">[20]</a>

<h3>CEO Joseph Luter defeats attempt to clean up pit lagoons</h3>

In 1995, when the company was attempting to persuade the State of Virginia to reduce a large fine for the company's pollution, CEO Joseph Luter contributed $100,000 to governor George Allen's political action committee.

In 1998, North Carolina corporate hog farms spent $1 million helping to defeat clean up legislation for the state's open pit lagoons. NC has consistently failed to employ enough inspectors to ensure that hog farms comply to environmental standards. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-20">[21]</a>

<h3>Fined for violations of the Clean Water Act</h3>

In August of 1997, Smithfield was fined 12.6 million dollars for violating the U.S. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Clean_Water_Act" title="Clean Water Act">Clean Water Act</a> in Smithfield, Virginia by a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia. It is the largest fine ever imposed under the Clean Water Act. Smithfield was dumping hog waste into the Pagan River, a tributary flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. A May 1997 ruling found the company's failure to install adequate pollution control equipment and properly treat waste water resulted in more than 5,000 violations of permit limits. The violations occurred for over five years and degraded the Pagan River, the James River and the Chesapeake Bay. Another ruling found the company had falsified documents and destroyed water quality records. Because the company delayed installing essential pollution control equipment and continued dumping waste into the river for five years, the EPA and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Department_of_Justice" title="Department of Justice" class="mw-redirect">Department of Justice</a>, forced them to build a sewage treatment plant. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-21">[22]</a> Smithfield had appealed a series of lower district court rulings, arguing that the United States was barred from suing the company due to an "agreement" with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality that allowed them to "exceed permit limits". In September of 1999, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling. The panel of three judges unanimously agreed that Virginia’s agreement not to enforce the phosphorous was not part of the company's EPA approved permit. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-22">[23]</a>

<h3>Smithfield funded study</h3>

In 2000, due to widespread environmental concerns about pig farm waste and the odor coming from open pit lagoons, North Carolina commissioned a 5 year study of pig waste management. The state has approximately 10 million pigs, mostly on industrialized farms. It was underwritten in part by 15 million dollars from Smithfield under an agreement with the state's Attorney General's Office. According to the study, alternatives to open pit lagoons would cost at least 20% more, in turn curtailing legislation which would force farmers to phase them out. According to the Chairman of the NC House Agriculture Committee:

<dl>

<dd>"We're sort of back where we started from. The cost is just too high. The average hog farmer couldn't afford it."</dd>

</dl>

He added that a moratorium currently blocking expansion of pig farming in the state was a "good idea."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-23">[24]</a>

<h2>Sierra Club's "Ten Least Wanted" list</h2>

In 2002, Smithfield Foods made the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Sierra_Club" title="Sierra Club">Sierra Club</a>'s "Ten Least Wanted" list. Just weeks after the second-largest beef recall in history, the Sierra Club released a report on hundreds of criminal and civil violations of America's largest corporate factory farms. The Rap sheet documented convictions for animal cruelty, bribery, records destruction, fraud, worker endangerment and pollution.

<dl>

<dd>"Despite repeated violations of environmental and public health laws, many of the companies highlighted in the Rap Sheets continue to receive millions of dollars every year from the School Lunch Program and other federal food assistance programs." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-24">[25]</a></dd>

</dl>

<h2>International (outsourcing & Swine flu)</h2>

<h3>Mexico</h3>

In 1994, the year the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement" title="North American Free Trade Agreement" class="mw-redirect">North American Free Trade Agreement</a> (NAFTA) went into effect, Smithfield Foods established the Perote operations with the Mexican agrobusiness AMSA (Agroindustrias Unidas de México S.A. de C.V.) In 1999, the company bought the U.S. company Carroll's Foods for $500 million and expanded its operations into Perote, Veracruz, Mexico. The first reports of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Swine_flu" title="Swine flu">Swine flu</a> came from Perote, Veracruz, home to Carroll Farms and operated by Smithfield. In early March, local health officials announced a health alert and investigation. According to Perote officials, 60% of the population suffered from flu, pneumonia and bronchitis. Federal health officials dismissed the complaints until April 5, when sanitary restrictions were placed on Carroll Farms. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-25">[26]</a> According to the company website the Perote facility raised 950,000 hogs in 2008. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-26">[27]</a>

Residents of Perote believed the outbreak to be caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms operated by Granjas Carroll polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, leading to the outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility attributed the cases to "flu." However, according to a municipal health official, preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste. It was unclear whether health officials identified a suspected pathogen linked to the outbreak of disease. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-27">[28]</a>

<h3>Romania</h3>

For centuries, from the Hapsburg Empire through Communist dictatorship, peasant farmers in Romania eked a living from hogs, driving horses along ancient pocked roads and whispering ritual prayers on butchering day. Old customs and jobs are dying and the air itself is changing, transformed by Smithfield Foods. Almost unnoticed by the rest of the Continent, the agribusiness giant has aggressively moved into Eastern Europe, assembling networks of farms, breeding pigs and slaughtering pigs on the fast track.

The upheaval in the hog farm belts of Poland and Romania, the two largest EU members in Eastern Europe, is among the Continent’s biggest agricultural transformations. It also offers a window on how a Fortune 500 from Virginia operates out of country. Smithfield has a joint venture in a Mexican hog farm located close to the area where <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/United_Nations" title="United Nations">United Nations</a> (UN) scientists are investigating a potential link between pigs and the new strain of human influenza (Swine flu). Smithfield’s global approach is clear. Chairman Joseph Luter III has described it as moving in a “very, very big way, very, very fast.” In less than five years, the company has enlisted politicians in Poland and Romania, tapped into hefty EU farm subsidies and fended off local opposition groups to create a conglomerate of feed mills, slaughterhouses and climate-controlled barns housing thousands of hogs. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-28">[29]</a>

In Romania, local farmers had high hopes when Smithfield Foods decided to invest in the country, near the town of Timisoara. However, two years later, it only seems to have caused sanitary and health problems:

<dl>

<dd>"It smells so bad, we can't sleep at night."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-29">[30]</a> See also video (right).</dd>

</dl>

<h3>Poland & Romania</h3>

According to the Smithfield's annual report for 2006, the company plans to nearly double its sow herd in Poland, from 61,000 to 120,000 head. If accomplished, it will produce about 2 million hogs in the country.

In nearby Romania, Smithfield plans to increase annual pig production to 3.6 million and increase its breeding herd from 32,000 to 200,000. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-30">[31]</a>

<h2>Violation of anti-trust laws</h2>

In November of 2004 Smithfield was fined 2 million dollars in civil penalties for twice failing to comply with premerger notification requirements before making stock acquisitions from its competitor, Iowa Beef Processors (IBP) in 1998 and 1999. The company claimed that its IBP stock acquisitions were exempt from filing requirements as they were "solely for the purpose of investment." However, according to the Justice Department, the exemption did not apply as Smithfield was actively considering merging with IBP at the time. According to J. Bruce McDonald, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Department's Antitrust Division:

<dl>

<dd>"Acquisition of stock in a firm that is also being considered as a takeover target or merger partner is not 'solely for the purpose of investment' under the HSR Act and is not exempt from the filing requirements. Ensuring strict compliance with the Act is crucial for effective antitrust enforcement. The Department will continue to closely monitor antitrust compliance in agriculture sectors."</dd>

</dl>

In the fiscal year ending in 2003, Smithfield's revenue was in excess of $9 billion. At the time, IBP was the nation's second largest pork packer. The company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tyson_Foods" title="Tyson Foods">Tyson Foods</a>. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-31">[32]</a>

<h2>Financial</h2>

"Difficult operating environments" in its hog production and fresh pork units led to an incurred loss of $107.7 million during in first quarter ending in August of 2009. The company recorded a loss of $13.2 million for the same period the previous year. Sales for the quarter were $2,715 million compared with sales of $3,141 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2009. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-32">[33]</a>

<h3>Lobbying</h3>

The company spent $$1,310,000 for <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lobbying" title="Lobbying">lobbying</a> in 2009. Firms used were <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/McGuire/Woods_Consulting,LLC." title="McGuire/Woods Consulting, LLC.">McGuire/Woods Consulting, LLC.</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Patton_Boggs" title="Patton Boggs">Patton Boggs</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Williams%26_Jensen" title="Williams & Jensen">Williams & Jensen</a>. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-33">[34]</a>

Smithfield is a member of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Meat_Institute" title="American Meat Institute">American Meat Institute</a> & the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Pork_Producers_Council" title="National Pork Producers Council">National Pork Producers Council</a> (NPPC).

<h3>Political contributions</h3>

Smithfield Foods gave $$89,900 to federal candidates in the 2010 election cycle through its <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Political_action_committee" title="Political action committee">political action committee</a> (PAC) - %43 to <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Democrats" title="Democrats" class="mw-redirect">Democrats</a> and %57 to <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Republican_Party_%28USA%29" title="Republican Party (USA)">Republicans</a>. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-34">[35]</a>

<h2>Personnel & board</h2>

<h3>Key executives & pay</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Joseph_W._Luter_III&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Joseph W. Luter III (page does not exist)">Joseph W. Luter III</a> (71) - Chairman & Consultant - 69K with 19.02M in exercised options.</li>

<li>C. Larry Pope (55) - CEO & Director - 2.6M with 373K in exercised options.</li>

<li>Robert Manly (57) - Executive VP & CFO - 1.1M</li>

<li>Jerry H. Godwin (63) - President, Murphy-Brown LLC - 1.75M</li>

<li>George H. Richter (65) - President & COO, Pork Group - 2.8M <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-35">[36]</a></li>

</ul>

<h3>Board members</h3>

<ul>

<li>Joseph W. Luter, III</li>

<li>C. Larry Pope</li>

<li>Robert L. Burrus Jr.</li>

<li>Carol T. Crawford</li>

<li>Ray A. Goldberg</li>

<li>Wendell H. Murphy</li>

<li>David C. Nelson</li>

<li>Gaoning Ning</li>

<li>Frank S. Royal, M.D.</li>

<li>John T. Schwieters</li>

<li>Paul S. Trible, Jr.</li>

<li>Melvin O. Wright <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-36">[37]</a></li>

</ul>

<h2>Contact</h2>

200 Commerce Street

Smithfield, VA 23430

Phone: 757-365-3000

Fax: 757-365-3017

Web address: <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.smithfieldfoods.com">http://www.smithfieldfoods.com</a>

<h2>Articles & sources</h2>

<h3>SourceWatch articles</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Veterinary_Medical_Association" title="American Veterinary Medical Association">American Veterinary Medical Association</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Clean_Water_Act" title="Clean Water Act">Clean Water Act</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Environmental_Protection_Agency" title="Environmental Protection Agency" class="mw-redirect">Environmental Protection Agency</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Humane_Movement" title="Humane Movement">Humane Movement</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/McCruelty_to_Go" title="McCruelty to Go">McCruelty to Go</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Meat_%26_Dairy_industry" title="Meat & Dairy industry">Meat & Dairy industry</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Pork_Producers_Council" title="National Pork Producers Council">National Pork Producers Council</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement" title="North American Free Trade Agreement" class="mw-redirect">North American Free Trade Agreement</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Processed_food_industry" title="Processed food industry">Processed food industry</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Swine_flu" title="Swine flu">Swine flu</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Department_of_Agriculture" title="U.S. Department of Agriculture">U.S. Department of Agriculture</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Food_and_Drug_Administration" title="U.S. Food and Drug Administration">U.S. Food and Drug Administration</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Government%27s_War_on_Animals" title="U.S. Government's War on Animals">U.S. Government's War on Animals</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/War_on_Animals" title="War on Animals">War on Animals</a></li>

</ul>

<h3>References</h3>

<li id="cite_note-0"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-0">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.hoovers.com/company/Smithfield_Foods_Inc/rckyci-1.html">Company Description: Smithfield Foods</a>, Hoovers, accessed December 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-1">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.hoovers.com/company/Smithfield_Foods_Inc/rckyci-1-1njea5.html">Key Smithfield Foods Financials</a>, Hoovers, accessed December 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-2">↑</a> Merritt Clifton <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/07/3/smithfieldcratephaseout3_07.htm">Smithfield & Maple Leaf Farms will phase out gestation crates</a>, Animal People News, March 2007</li>

<li id="cite_note-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-3">↑</a> Steve Hannaford <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2003/12/26.html">Oligopoly brief: Smithfield Foods</a>, Oligopoly Watch, updated September 2007</li>

<li id="cite_note-4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-4">↑</a> Marian Burros <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/us/20deen.html?ex=1334721600&en=9d4183dee66b0918&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">Union, in Organizing Fight, Tangles With Celebrity Cook</a>", <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/New_York_Times" title="New York Times">New York Times</a>, April 2007</li>

<li id="cite_note-5"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-5">↑</a> Jeff Tietz <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:EGBUZt3HH8cJ:regionalworkbench.org/USP2/pdf_files/pigs.pdf+rolling+stone+boss+hog&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShfzRSd45hsYzFSQIq4Zd5EP1kxU7jt0y_-m9zI9-Im-xBMl9WPeV5GbD2OqWnckbM1efnQBIAVGsMRpmAnnAULNg3qt0rCKasXh0uVGOJJVlFURJnLBqEg5jmKmBqsLbbtRglM&sig=AHIEtbQHBSrlUGAHbslFrNAnugxPePDxug&pli=1">Boss Hog</a>, Page 3, Rolling Stone, December 2006</li>

<li id="cite_note-6"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-6">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=24990">Smithfield: One pig is slaughtered every two seconds...</a>, European Vegetarian and Animal News Alliance, August 2007</li>

<li id="cite_note-7"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-7">↑</a> Jeff Tietz <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:EGBUZt3HH8cJ:regionalworkbench.org/USP2/pdf_files/pigs.pdf+rolling+stone+boss+hog&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShfzRSd45hsYzFSQIq4Zd5EP1kxU7jt0y_-m9zI9-Im-xBMl9WPeV5GbD2OqWnckbM1efnQBIAVGsMRpmAnnAULNg3qt0rCKasXh0uVGOJJVlFURJnLBqEg5jmKmBqsLbbtRglM&sig=AHIEtbQHBSrlUGAHbslFrNAnugxPePDxug&pli=1">Boss Hog</a>, Rolling Stone, Pages 1,2, December 2006</li>

<li id="cite_note-8"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-8">↑</a> Catherine Donaldson-Evans <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316624,00.html">North Carolina Authorities Investigate Alleged Pig Abuse by Supplier for Largest U.S. Pork Producer</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fox_News" title="Fox News">Fox News</a>, December 2007</li>

<li id="cite_note-9"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-9">↑</a> Catherine Donaldson-Evans <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317947,00.html">North Carolina Slaughterhouse Workers Fired for Brutally Abusing Pigs</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fox_News" title="Fox News">Fox News</a>, December 2007</li>

<li id="cite_note-10"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-10">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://secure.peta.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=697">Charges Filed After Investigation Reveals Torture of Pigs</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/People_for_the_Ethical_Treatment_of_Animals" title="People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals">People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals</a> Action Alerts, accessed December 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-11"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-11">↑</a> Alan Goldberg, Ph.D. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.livablefutureblog.com/2009/07/is-smithfield-decision-not-to-replace-gestation-crates-ethical/">Is Smithfield Decision Not to Replace Gestation Crates Ethical?</a>, Center for a Livable Future, July 2009</li>

<li id="cite_note-12"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-12">↑</a> Merritt Clifton <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/07/3/smithfieldcratephaseout3_07.htm">Smithfield & Maple Leaf Farms will phase out gestation crates</a>, Animal People News, March 2007</li>

<li id="cite_note-13"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-13">↑</a> Marc Kaufman <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012501785.html">Largest Pork Processor to Phase Out Crates</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Washington_Post" title="Washington Post">Washington Post</a>, January 2007</li>

<li id="cite_note-14"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-14">↑</a> Merritt Clifton <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/07/3/smithfieldcratephaseout3_07.htm">Smithfield & Maple Leaf Farms will phase out gestation crates</a>, Animal People News, March 2007</li>

<li id="cite_note-15"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-15">↑</a> Lynn Truong <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.wisebread.com/the-cost-of-meat-the-market-demand-argument">The Cost of Meat—The Market Demand Argument: PETA vs. McDonald's</a>, Wisebread, May 2007</li>

<li id="cite_note-16"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-16">↑</a> Alan Goldberg, Ph.D. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.livablefutureblog.com/2009/07/is-smithfield-decision-not-to-replace-gestation-crates-ethical/">Is Smithfield Decision Not to Replace Gestation Crates Ethical?</a>, Center for a Livable Future, July 2009</li>

<li id="cite_note-17"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-17">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/17/smithfield-pork-pigs-abuse-humane-society_n_798310.html">Smithfield Pig Cruelty: Leading Pork Producer Caught Abusing Pigs</a>, Huffington Post, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Associated_Press" title="Associated Press">Associated Press</a>, December 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-18"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-18">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.humanesociety.org/news/press_releases/2010/12/smithfield_pigs_121510.html">HSUS Exposes Inhumane Treatment of Pigs at Smithfield: Systemic abuses at factory farm</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Humane_Society_of_the_United_States" title="Humane Society of the United States">Humane Society of the United States</a>, December 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-19"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-19">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=19024">USA: Smithfield Foods, the largest pork processor in the world, killed 27 million hogs last year</a>, European Vegetarian and Animal News Alliance, January 2007</li>

<li id="cite_note-20"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-20">↑</a> Jeff Tietz <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:EGBUZt3HH8cJ:regionalworkbench.org/USP2/pdf_files/pigs.pdf+rolling+stone+boss+hog&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShfzRSd45hsYzFSQIq4Zd5EP1kxU7jt0y_-m9zI9-Im-xBMl9WPeV5GbD2OqWnckbM1efnQBIAVGsMRpmAnnAULNg3qt0rCKasXh0uVGOJJVlFURJnLBqEg5jmKmBqsLbbtRglM&sig=AHIEtbQHBSrlUGAHbslFrNAnugxPePDxug&pli=1">Boss Hog</a>, Rolling Stone, page 4, December 2006</li>

<li id="cite_note-21"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-21">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1997/August97/331enr.htm">Smithfield Foods Fined $12.6 Million in Largest Clean Water Act Fine Ever</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Department_of_Justice" title="U.S. Department of Justice">U.S. Department of Justice</a>, News Release, August 1997</li>

<li id="cite_note-22"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-22">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/135261f4d1edd40885257359003d4807/c7a68726816ff7b3852567ef0053e790%21OpenDocument">Appeals Court Upholds Ruling Against Smithfield Foods for Polluting Virginia River</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Environmental_Protection_Agency" title="Environmental Protection Agency" class="mw-redirect">Environmental Protection Agency</a>, News Release, September 1999</li>

<li id="cite_note-23"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-23">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=4181">PETA vs. Smithfield Legal battle over allegations of cruelty and deception</a>, EVANA, July 2005</li>

<li id="cite_note-24"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-24">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://indiana.sierraclub.org/Sierran/02-4/rapsheets.asp">Report and Online Database Document Animal Cruelty, Pollution Spills</a>, Indiana Sierra Fall 2002</li>

<li id="cite_note-25"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-25">↑</a> Laura Carlson <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-carlsen/mexicos-swine-flu-and-the_b_193239.html">Mexico's Swine Flu and the Globalization of Disease</a>, Huffington Post, April 2009</li>

<li id="cite_note-26"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-26">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.smithfieldfoods.com/our_company/our_family/GranjasCarroll.aspx">Hog Production Granjas Carroll de Mexico</a>, Smithfield Foods, accessed July 2009</li>

<li id="cite_note-27"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-27">↑</a> Tom Philpott <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-25-swine-flu-smithfield/">When pigs flu: Swine-flu outbreak could be linked to Smithfield factory farms</a>, Grist, April 2009</li>

<li id="cite_note-28"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-28">↑</a> Doreen Carvajal, Stephen Castle <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/business/global/06smithfield.html?_r=3&scp=1&sq=smithfield&st=cse">A U.S. Hog Giant Transforms Eastern Europe</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/New_York_Times" title="New York Times">New York Times</a>, May 2009</li>

<li id="cite_note-29"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-29">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=45373">Romania: US pork producer giant causes local farmers problems.</a>, June 2009</li>

<li id="cite_note-30"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-30">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=15000">USA: Smithfield is exporting the stink to Poland and Romania</a>, EVANA, September 2006</li>

<li id="cite_note-31"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-31">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/press_releases/2004/206229.htm">Smithfield Foods to Pay $2 Million Civil Penalty for Violating Antitrust Premerger Notification Requirements</a>", U.S. Department of Justice, November 2004</li>

<li id="cite_note-32"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-32">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=48455">USA: Smithfield Foods suffers first-quarter loss</a>, EVANA, September 2009</li>

<li id="cite_note-33"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-33">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?lname=Smithfield+Foods&year=2009">Smithfield Foods lobbying expenses</a>, Open Secrets, accessed February 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-34"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-34">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00359075&cycle=2010">2010 PAC Summary Data</a>, Open Secrets, accessed February 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-35"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-35">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=SFD">Smithfield Foods Profile: Key Executives</a>, Yahoo Finance, fiscal year ending December 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-36"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-36">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.smithfieldfoods.com/our_company/leadership.aspx">Our Company: Leadership at Smithfield Foods</a>, Smithfield Foods, October 2009</li>

<li id="cite_note-37"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smithfield_Foods#cite_ref-37">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.hoovers.com/company/Smithfield_Foods_Inc/rckyci-1.html">Company Description: Smithfield</a>, Hoovers, accessed December 2010</li>

</ol>

</div>

<h3>External articles</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Robert_F.Kennedy,Jr." title="Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.">Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://nmadnews.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/robert-f-kennedy-jr-statment-on-smithfields-pig-factory/">Statement on Smithfields` pig factory</a>, Naturally Mad News, July 2009</li>

<li>F. William Engdahl <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13408">Flying Pigs, Tamiflu and Factory Farms</a>, Centre for Research on Globalization, April 2009</li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.supportiowasfarmers.org/fullarticle.aspx?artid=2633">Smithfield sued over flu death</a>, Coalition to Support Iowa's Farmers, June 2009</li>

<li>Leslie Hatfield <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-hatfield/doth-smithfield-protest-t_b_194861.html">USA: Doth Smithfield Protest Too Much? Swine Flu Brings Focus to Factory Farm Practices</a>, Huffington Post, May 2009</li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.fool.com/news/associated-press/2007/12/11/peta-cruelty-at-smithfield-hog-supplier.aspx">PETA: Cruelty at Smithfield Hog Supplier</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Associated_Press" title="Associated Press">Associated Press</a>, December 2007</li>

<li>Sonja Barisic <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20071213/ai_n21156048/">PETA seeks charge against a pig farm</a>, Deseret News & Associated Press, December 2007</li>

<li>Paul Schaefer <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/27313">Abuse of Pigs by world's largest supplier</a>, Environmental News Network, December 2007</li>

</ul>

<h3>External resources</h3>

<ul>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/smithfield-foods-brutality-to-pigs-and-environment-must-stop/">Smithfield Food's brutality to pigs and environment must stop!</a>, Care2 Petition Site, accessed December 2010</li>

</ul>

</div>

<div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Categories</a>:

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Global_corporations" title="Category:Global corporations">Global corporations</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Water" title="Category:Water">Water</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Energy" title="Category:Energy">Energy</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Corporations" title="Category:Corporations">Corporations</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Food_industry" title="Category:Food industry">Food industry</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:International" title="Category:International">International</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Animal_commerce" title="Category:Animal commerce">Animal commerce</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Environment" title="Category:Environment">Environment</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Agriculture" title="Category:Agriculture">Agriculture</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Gross_Animal_Welfare_Violations" title="Category:Gross Animal Welfare Violations">Gross Animal Welfare Violations</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Human_rights_abuses" title="Category:Human rights abuses">Human rights abuses</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Animal_rights" title="Category:Animal rights">Animal rights</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Diseases" title="Category:Diseases">Diseases</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

---

wiki

Joseph W. Luter III (born July 17, 1939) is chairman of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods,_Inc." title="Smithfield Foods, Inc." class="mw-redirect">Smithfield Foods, Inc.</a> (NYSE: SFD), the world's largest hog producer and pork processor. Under Luter's leadership, Smithfield Foods has grown to over $11 billion in annual revenues and has successfully integrated more than 53 acquisitions over the last 24 years to expand the company's products both in the U.S. and internationally. The company has also vertically integrated hog production and processing. Luter has been known for his groundbreaking work with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto" title="Monsanto">Monsanto</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Con-Agra" title="Con-Agra" class="mw-redirect">Con-Agra</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sombra_Negra" title="Sombra Negra">Sombra Negra</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepperidge_Farms" title="Pepperidge Farms" class="mw-redirect">Pepperidge Farms</a>.

Luter has been instrumental in translating Smithfield's growth into enhanced <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_value" title="Shareholder value">shareholder value</a>. Over Luter's 31 years at Smithfield, the company has delivered a 24 percent average annual compounded rate of return. For the last 15 years, Smithfield Foods has outperformed the S&P 500 Index by more than 160 percent.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#cite_note-1">[1]</a>

<h2>Contents</h2>

</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#Background">1 Background</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#Growing_the_company">2 Growing the company</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#Vertical_integration">3 Vertical integration</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#Smithfield_today">4 Smithfield today</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#Recent_career">5 Recent career</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#References">6 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#External_links">7 External links</a></li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2>Background</h2>

Following in the steps of his grandfather, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Luter_Sr.&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Joseph Luter Sr. (page does not exist)">Joseph Luter Sr.</a>, who founded <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Packing_Company" title="Smithfield Packing Company">Smithfield Packing Company</a> in 1936, and his father, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Luter,Jr.&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Joseph Luter, Jr. (page does not exist)">Joseph Luter, Jr.</a>, who served as CEO until his death in 1962, Joseph W. Luter III is the third generation of his family to lead the company. Luter was born in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield,Virginia" title="Smithfield, Virginia">Smithfield, Virginia</a>, in 1939 and received his bachelor’s degree from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_Forest_University" title="Wake Forest University">Wake Forest University</a> in 1962. He first joined Smithfield following graduation, working in sales and other departments until he became president in 1966. Luter served in that role until the company was acquired by Liberty Equities in 1969. In 1975, with the company in severe financial distress, Smithfield’s board of directors asked that Luter rejoin the company as chairman and CEO. At the time, the company had sales of $115 million, debt of $20 million and net worth of less than $1 million. Smithfield Foods stock was trading as low as $.50 per share.

<h2>Growing the company</h2>

In just a few years under Luter’s leadership, Smithfield Foods returned to financial health and even began to expand. In 1981, it announced its first major acquisition – the purchase of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwaltney" title="Gwaltney" class="mw-redirect">Gwaltney</a> of Smithsburg, its local rival and a well-established pork products company. It was a bold move, leveraging up at a time when interest rates were north of 20 percent. But it doubled Smithfield Foods’ size, enlarged its family of brands, and catapulted the company from being a local packer and processor to becoming a major regional force along the East coast of the United States.

Although Smithfield was prospering, in 1984 the industry was going through hard times, with overcapacity, intense competition and weak consumer demand. In December 1984, Smithfield bought 80 percent of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Cudahy" title="Patrick Cudahy">Patrick Cudahy</a>, a 100-year-old Wisconsin company that was losing money but famous for its sweet apple-wood smoked sausages, bacon and ham. For $27.5 million, Smithfield acquired a huge manufacturing plant, valuable new products and its first presence outside the East coast. In 1986, Smithfield acquired another distressed company, Baltimore’s Schluderberg-Kurdle Company, or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esskay" title="Esskay" class="mw-redirect">Esskay</a>, which nevertheless possessed a valuable brand and loyal customers.

These moves were the beginning of Luter’s strategy of acquiring poorly performing packing companies and turning them around into profitable operations. Since then, Smithfield has acquired <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Morrell_%26_Co." title="John Morrell & Co." class="mw-redirect">John Morrell & Co.</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmland_Foods" title="Farmland Foods" class="mw-redirect">Farmland Foods</a> and multiple other regional pork processors in the United States.

<h2>Vertical integration</h2>

Luter is also the architect of Smithfield’s strategy of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_integration" title="Vertical integration">vertical integration</a>. In the late 1980s, there was not enough local hog production to meet the company’s growing needs. Smithfield was trucking in more than 1.5 million hogs a year from the Midwest, an expensive endeavor. In addition, cyclical hog prices were squeezing its profits. And so, in 1987 Smithfield began to produce its own hogs through a joint venture with Carroll’s Foods. This helped to provide a reliable supply of raw material, smoothed out the effects of cyclical price, and ended the company’s dependence on Midwestern hogs.

At the heart of this strategy was Smithfield’s proprietary SPG (formerly NPD) genetic stock. In 1991, the company acquired the exclusive U.S. rights for genetic lines of this specialized breeding stock from Great Britain’s National Pig Development Company. Starting with a pure genetic base of sows airlifted from Great Britain in 1991, Smithfield controls the production of its fresh pork products from before conception to final processing.

Luter pioneered the pork processing industry’s entry into vertical integration through hog production by entering into a venture to form Brown’s of Carolina in the early nineties. In 1999 and 2000 Smithfield added Carroll’s Foods and Murphy Farms to its group of hog production companies, making it the world’s largest producer of hogs, more than three times the size of the nearest competitor. The hog production companies merged into one in 2001 as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murphy-Brown&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Murphy-Brown (page does not exist)">Murphy-Brown</a>. In addition, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Smithfield_Beef_Group&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Smithfield Beef Group (page does not exist)">Smithfield Beef Group</a> is the fifth largest beef processor in the U.S. and the company’s Five Rivers cattle feeding joint venture is the largest in the U.S. with a one-time total feeding capacity of 811,000 head.

Vertical integration has enabled Smithfield to deliver safe, affordable, consistent, and traceable products that satisfy consumers’ increasingly demanding requirements.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed">citation needed</a>] It has also made Smithfield less exposed to the traditional cyclicality of the pork industry.

<h2>Smithfield today</h2>

Today’s Smithfield is a true multinational company with major operations in France, Poland, Romania and Mexico, all of which have been acquired under Luter’s leadership. The company has joint ventures in Spain and China.

It has also grown beyond just the pork industry. In 2001, it acquired Moyer Packing Co., the largest beef processor in the eastern U.S., and Packerland Holdings, a large Midwestern processor. Together, these made the Smithfield Beef Group the nation’s fifth-largest beef processor.

In response to criticism <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#cite_note-Rolling_Stone-2">[2]</a> regarding the environmental impact of Smithfield's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_animal_feeding_operation" title="Concentrated animal feeding operation" class="mw-redirect">concentrated animal feeding operation</a> facilities under Luter’s leadership, Smithfield has attempted a new approach to environmental stewardship. The company is committed to various environmental enhancement initiatives, including a comprehensive environmental management system (EMS), developed to meet the internationally accepted and respected ISO 14001 standard.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed">citation needed</a>] In 2005, Smithfield announced that it had become the first in its industry to achieve ISO 14001 certification for all its U.S. hog production and processing facilities.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed">citation needed</a>] Smithfield companies have been honored with five Virginia Governor’s Environmental Excellence Awards, a Wisconsin Governor’s Award for Excellence in Environmental Performance, and 48 Environmental MAPS Awards from the American Meat Institute.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed">citation needed</a>]

<h2>Recent career</h2>

Luter announced in June 2006 that he would relinquish the title of chief executive officer of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods" title="Smithfield Foods">Smithfield Foods</a> after serving in that position for 31 years. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Larry_Pope&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Larry Pope (page does not exist)">Larry Pope</a> took over for Luter as the company's CEO.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W.Luter_III#cite_note-3">[3]</a> The business school at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Newport_University" title="Christopher Newport University">Christopher Newport University</a> is named for him.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W.Luter_III#cite_note-4">[4]</a>

<h2>References</h2>

<li id="cite_note-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#cite_ref-1">^{</a></span}> Forbes <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/12/UQDU.html">http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/12/UQDU.html</a> <code>|url=</code> missing title (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:CS1_errors#bare_url_missing_title" title="Help:CS1 errors">help</a>).</li>

<li id="cite_note-Rolling_Stone-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#cite_ref-Rolling_Stone_2-0">^{</a></span}> Tietz, Jeff (December 14, 2006), <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters">"Boss Hog"</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone" title="Rolling Stone">Rolling Stone</a>, retrieved April 27, 2009</li>

<li id="cite_note-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#cite_ref-3">^{</a></span}> <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.smithfieldfoodsnews.com/VolumeIV_NumberI/index.html">http://www.smithfieldfoodsnews.com/VolumeIV_NumberI/index.html</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III#cite_ref-4">^{</a></span}> <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://universityrelations.cnu.edu/news/2007/12_19_07newcollege.html">http://universityrelations.cnu.edu/news/2007/12_19_07newcollege.html</a></li>

</ol>

</div>

<h2>External links</h2>

<ul>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.smithfieldFoods.com">Smithfield Foods corporate website</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters/2">Rolling Stone: Pork's Dirty Secret</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Categories" title="Help:Categories">Categories</a>:

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<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Living_people" title="Category:Living people">Living people</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_chief_executives" title="Category:American chief executives">American chief executives</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1939_births" title="Category:1939 births">1939 births</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Businesspeople_from_Virginia" title="Category:Businesspeople from Virginia">Businesspeople from Virginia</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

-----

<h3 class="r"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303936904579180771391697660">Smithfield Foods Owner Shuanghui Plans $5 Billion IPO - WSJ.com</a><img alt="" src="data:image/jpeg;base64,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" id="ascimg3" style=" margin-left: 4px;" height="16" width="16" /></h3>

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<div class="f kv" style=" white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="vurls">online.wsj.com/.../SB1000142405270230393690457918077139169766...</cite>‎</div>

Nov 6, 2013 - China's biggest pork producer, Shuanghui International, is following up its acquisition of Smithfield Foods with a planned US$5 billion listing in ...</div>

</div>

<h3 class="r"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324412604578512722044165756">China's Shuanghui to Buy Smithfield Foods - WSJ.com</a><img alt="" src="data:image/jpeg;base64,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" id="ascimg4" style=" margin-left: 4px;" height="16" width="16" /></h3>

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<div class="f kv" style=" white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="vurls">online.wsj.com/.../SB1000142412788732441260457851272204416575...</cite>‎</div>

May 30, 2013 - China's largest meat processor struck a surprise $4.7 billion agreement to acquire Smithfield Foods, a deal that would mark the biggest ...

wikipedia 11/13

mithfield Foods, Inc. is the largest <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork" title="Pork">pork</a> producer and processor in the United States.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Turner323-2">[2]</a>

It was bought by the Chinese group <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuanghui" title="Shuanghui">Shuanghui</a>, the largest producer in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China" title="People's Republic of China" class="mw-redirect">People's Republic of China</a>, in September 2013.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-3">[3]</a>

Headquartered in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield,Virginia" title="Smithfield, Virginia">Smithfield, Virginia</a>, it runs facilities in 26 U.S. states, including the largest <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse" title="Slaughterhouse">slaughterhouse</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_packing_industry" title="Meat packing industry">meat-processing</a> plant in the world, located in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Heel,North_Carolina" title="Tar Heel, North Carolina">Tar Heel, North Carolina</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Turner323-2">[2]</a> It also has operations in Mexico and in 10 European countries, with a global total of over 46,000 employees and an annual revenue of $13 billion.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-4">[4]</a>

Smithfield was founded in 1936 by Joseph W. Luter and his son as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Packing_Company" title="Smithfield Packing Company">Smithfield Packing Company</a>, now its largest subsidiary. From 1981, it began to purchase companies such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckrich" title="Eckrich">Eckrich</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmland_Industries" title="Farmland Industries">Farmland Foods</a> of Kansas, Gwaltney of Smithfield, John Morrell, Murphy Family Farms of North Carolina, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_Standard_Farms" title="Premium Standard Farms">Premium Standard Farms</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Deptolla1-5">[5]</a> It was able to grow as a result of its highly industrialized <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig" title="Pig">pig</a> production, raising the animals using a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_integration" title="Vertical integration">vertical integration</a> system of production that enables the company to control their development from conception to packing. Thousands of livestock are housed together in barns with metal roofs, known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_Animal_Feeding_Operation" title="Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation">CAFOs</a> (concentrated animal feeding operations), where they are permanently confined.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Barbozap1-6">[6]</a>

The company raises around 15 million pigs a year and processes 27 million, producing over six billion pounds of pork.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Tietz1-7">[7]</a> It was the top pig slaughter operation in the United States in 2007, at 114,300 pigs a day, and along with three other companies slaughtered 56 percent of the cows processed there until it sold its beef group in 2008.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-8">[8]</a> Smithfield sells its products under a variety of brand names, including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook%27s_Ham" title="Cook's Ham">Cook's Ham</a>, Gwaltney, John Morrell, Krakus Ham, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Cudahy" title="Patrick Cudahy">Patrick Cudahy</a>, Smithfield, and Stefano's. C. Larry Pope is the president and chief executive officer.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-history2-9">[9]</a>

<h2>Contents</h2>

</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Company_profile">1 Company profile</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Pig_production">2 Pig production</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Vertical_integration">2.1 Vertical integration</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Housing_and_lagoons">2.2 Housing and lagoons</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Pregnant_sows">2.3 Pregnant sows</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Environmental_and_animal_welfare_record">3 Environmental and animal welfare record</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Emissions">3.1 Emissions</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-8"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Company_response">3.1.1 Company response</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-9"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Use_of_antibiotics">3.2 Use of antibiotics</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-10"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Operations_in_Mexico">3.3 Operations in Mexico</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-11"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Packaging_reduction">3.4 Packaging reduction</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-12"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#2010_Humane_Society_investigation">3.5 2010 Humane Society investigation</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-13"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Legal_and_labor_issues">4 Legal and labor issues</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-14"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Working_conditions">4.1 Working conditions</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-15"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Union_dispute">4.2 Union dispute</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-16"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Justice_Department_penalty">4.3 Justice Department penalty</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-17"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Philanthropy">5 Philanthropy</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-18"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Opposition_to_Prop_37">6 Opposition to Prop 37</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-19"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Sports_Sponsorships">7 Sports Sponsorships</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-20"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Governance">8 Governance</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-22"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Notes">10 Notes</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-23"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#References">11 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-24"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Further_reading">12 Further reading</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<h2>Company profile</h2>

The company traces its history to 1936, when Joseph W. Luter, Sr. and his son, Joseph W. Luter, Jr., opened the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Packing_Company" title="Smithfield Packing Company">Smithfield Packing Company</a> in Smithfield, Virginia. The latter served as chief executive officer (CEO) until his death in 1962. A grandson, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Luter_III" title="Joseph W. Luter III">Joseph W. Luter III</a>, joined the company the same year, and in 1966 became chairman and CEO until Smithfield was taken over by Liberty Equities in 1969. The company hired Luter again as CEO in 1975 when it found itself in financial difficulties. His restructuring of the company is credited with its improved performance, and he remains on the board of directors.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Turner323-2">[2]</a> His son, Joseph W. Luter IV, is an executive vice president of Smithfield Foods and president of the Smithfield Packing Company, the parent company's largest subsidiary.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-history2-9">[9]</a>

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Smithfield began to expand in 1981 with its purchase of its main competitor, Gwaltney of Smithfield. This was followed by the acquisition of almost 40 companies in the pork, beef and livestock industries between 1981 and around 2008.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-10">[10]</a> Patrick Cudahy was purchased in 1984 and Schluderberg-Kurdle in 1986.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-history2-9">[9]</a> In 1992 the company opened the world's largest processing plant, a 973,000-square-foot facility in Tar Heel, North Carolina, which in 2000 could process 32,000 pigs a day.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Barbozap2-11">[11]</a>

It purchased John Morrell & Co in the Midwest in 1995, Circle Four Farms in 1998, and in 1999 bought the three largest pig producers in the United States: Carroll's Foods, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyson_Foods" title="Tyson Foods">Tyson Foods Pork Group</a> and Murphy Family Farms of North Carolina, at that point the largest producer. Jill Hobbs and Linda Young write that Smithfield's purchase of these three companies constituted a major structural change in the U.S. pig industry.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-12">[12]</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmland_Industries" title="Farmland Industries">Farmland Foods</a> of Kansas City was added in 2003, as were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Lee_Corporation" title="Sara Lee Corporation">Sara Lee's European Meats</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ConAgra_Foods_Refrigerated_Meats&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="ConAgra Foods Refrigerated Meats (page does not exist)">ConAgra Foods Refrigerated Meats</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterball" title="Butterball">Butterball</a> (the poultry producer), and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_Standard_Farms" title="Premium Standard Farms">Premium Standard Farms</a> in 2007.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-history2-9">[9]</a> It sold its 49 percent share in Butterball in 2008 for an estimated $175 million.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-13">[13]</a>

The acquisitions have caused concern among regulators in the United States regarding the company's control of the food supply. After Smithfield's purchase of Murphy Family Farms, the Agriculture Department described it as "absurdly big."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Barbozap1-6">[6]</a> As of 2006 four companies – Smithfield, Tyson, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBS_USA" title="JBS USA">Swift & Company</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargill" title="Cargill">Cargill</a> – were responsible for the production of 70 percent of pork in the United States.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-14">[14]</a>

The company had 46,050 employees in the United States, Mexico and Europe as of 2012, and an annual revenue of $13 billion. It raises 15.8 million pigs a year, producing 3.8 billion pounds of fresh pork and 2.7 billion pounds of packaged meat, sold as 50 brands of pork products and 200 gourmet foods.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-history-15">[15]</a> Along with specialty brands such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Deen" title="Paula Deen">Paula Deen Collection</a>, and international brands such as Weight Watchers, the company's 12 core brands are Armour, Carando, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook%27s_Ham" title="Cook's Ham">Cook's Ham</a>, Curly's Foods, Eckrich, Farmland, Gwaltney, Healthy Ones, John Morrell, Kretschmar, Margherita, and Smithfield.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-16">[16]</a> The company also operates The Genuine Smithfield Ham Shoppe and a restaurant, Taste of Smithfield, both in Smithfield, Virginia.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-17">[17]</a>

On 29 May 2013, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuanghui" title="Shuanghui">Shuanghui</a>, a Chinese company, announced a purchase of all of the stock of Smithfield Foods, Inc. for approximately $4.72 billion.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-pig_in_china-18">[18]</a> It was also announced by Shuanghui that it would list Smithfield on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Stock_Exchange" title="Hong Kong Stock Exchange">Hong Kong Stock Exchange</a> after completing the takeover.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-19">[19]</a> On 6 September 2013 the U.S. government approved Shuanghui International Holding’s purchase of Smithfield Food, Inc. The deal was valued approximately $7.1 billion. It was the biggest Chinese takeover of a U.S. company to date.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-U.S.approves_Chinese_company.E2.80.99s_purchase_of_Smithfield-20">[20]</a>

<h2>Pig production</h2>

<h3>Vertical integration</h3>

<div class="rellink">Further information: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_Integration" title="Vertical Integration" class="mw-redirect">Vertical Integration</a></div>

In 1990, the company bought hog farming operations, making it a vertically-integrated company. The system allows Smithfield to control every stage of pig production, from conception and birth to slaughter, processing and packing – known as "from squeal to meal" or "from birth to bacon."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Barbozap2-11">[11]</a>

Luter has said that "vertical integration gives you high quality, consistent products with consistent genetics. And the only way to do that is to control the process from the farm to the packing plant."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Barbozap1-6">[6]</a> Tyya N. Turner writes that in 1990 the company obtained 2,000 pigs and the exclusive right to their genetic lines from Britain's National Pig Development Company, and used them to create Smithfield Lean Generation Pork, which was certified by the American Heart Association for its low fat, salt, and cholesterol content. According to Luter, it was vertical integration that enabled this.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Turner323-2">[2]</a>

<h3>Housing and lagoons</h3>

The pigs are housed together in their thousands in identical barns with metal roofs, known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_Animal_Feeding_Operation" title="Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation">CAFOs</a> (concentrated animal feeding operations).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-21">[21]</a> The floors of the buildings are slatted, allowing waste to be flushed into 30-feet-deep open-air pits the size of two football fields, referred to within the industry as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_lagoon" title="Anaerobic lagoon">lagoons</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Fainaru2-22">[22]</a> Smithfield says the lagoons contain an impervious liner made to withstand leakage.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Fainaru2-22">[22]</a> According to Jeff Tietz writing for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone" title="Rolling Stone">Rolling Stone</a> magazine, the waste – a mixture of excrement, urine, blood, afterbirths, stillborn pigs, drugs and other chemicals – overflows when it rains and the liners can be punctured by rocks.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Tietz1-7">[7]</a> Smithfield attributes the pink color of the waste to the health of the lagoons, writing that the color is "a sign of bacteria doing what it should be doing. It's indicative of lower odor and lower nutrient content."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-23">[23]</a>

<h3>Pregnant sows</h3>

Sows used for breeding are confined in 7 ft x 2 ft <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestation_crate" title="Gestation crate">gestation crates</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-24">[24]</a> This image was taken inside a Smithfield facility in Virginia in 2010.</div>

</div>

Smithfield said in December 2011 that it would phase out the use of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestation_crate" title="Gestation crate">gestation crates</a> on its company-owned farms by 2017 in the United States, and by 2022 in Europe and Mexico.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-SmithfieldCarmen-25">[25]</a> Pregnant sows spend most of their lives in these individual stalls, which are too small to allow them to turn around.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-NYTStrom-26">[26]</a> When they give birth, they are moved to a farrowing crate for about three weeks, then artificially inseminated and placed back into a gestation crate.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-27">[27]</a> The practice has led to criticism from animal welfare groups, supermarket chains and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s" title="McDonald's">McDonald's</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-NYTStrom-26">[26]</a> Smithfield said in 2007 that it would phase out gestation crates by 2017,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-28">[28]</a> but in 2009 said it would not meet the projected timeline because of operating losses caused by the recession.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-29">[29]</a> In January 2013, it said that 38 percent of pregnant sows on its company-owned farms had been moved out of the crates. It would not commit to requiring its contract farms to phase them out.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-30">[30]</a>

<h2>Environmental and animal welfare record</h2>

<h3>Emissions</h3>

Smithfield has come under criticism for the millions of gallons of untreated fecal matter it produces and stores in the lagoons. In a four-year period in North Carolina alone, 4.7 million gallons of hog fecal matter were released into the state's rivers. Workers and residents near Smithfield plants have reported health problems, and have complained about the constant, overpowering stenches of hog feces.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Tietz4-31">[31]</a>

The company was fined $12.6 million in 1997 by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Protection_Agency" title="Environmental Protection Agency" class="mw-redirect">Environmental Protection Agency</a> (EPA) for 6,900 violations of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Water_Act" title="Clean Water Act">Clean Water Act</a> after discharging illegal levels of slaughterhouse waste into the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan_River" title="Pagan River">Pagan River</a> in Virginia.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-EPA1997-32">[32]</a> Its facilities in North Carolina came under scrutiny again in 1999 when <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Floyd" title="Hurricane Floyd">Hurricane Floyd</a> flooded a number of lagoons holding fecal matter, and many of the hog farms that contracted with Smithfield were accused of polluting the state's rivers.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-settlement-33">[33]</a> Smithfield reached a settlement in March 2000 with the state of North Carolina, agreeing to pay the state $50 million over 25 years. The company agreed to donate $1.3 million to clean up, North Carolina State University would receive $15 million to research the treatment of pig waste, and the North Carolina Foundation for Soil and Water Conservation, Ducks Unlimited and the North Carolina Coastal Federation would receive grants.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-settlement-33">[33]</a>

<h4>Company response</h4>

Ralph Deptolla writes that the company responded to the criticism by creating new executive positions to monitor the environmental issues, and hired Dennis Treacy, a former director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, as Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer. Treacy had previously been involved in the enforcement efforts against Smithfield. Deptolla writes that Smithfield also created an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_management_system" title="Environmental management system">environmental management system</a> (ESM), launching it in 2001 at its Murphy-Brown facilities.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Deptolla9-34">[34]</a>

In 2005, the company received ISO 14001 certification from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization" title="International Organization for Standardization">International Organization for Standardization</a> for its hog production and processing facilities in the United States, with the exception of new acquisitions, and, in 2009, 14 plants in the United States and 21 in Romania received certification.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-35">[35]</a> Deptolla writes that 578 Smithfield facilities were ISO 14001-certified as of 2011.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Deptolla9-34">[34]</a> In 2006 its hog-production subsidiary Murphy-Brown reached an agreement with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterkeeper_Alliance" title="Waterkeeper Alliance">Waterkeeper Alliance</a>, once one of Smithfield's biggest critics, to adopt new measures to enhance environmental protection at the former's facilities in North Carolina.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-36">[36]</a> In 2009 the company said it had reduced greenhouse gas emissions at its plants by four percent since 2007, its processing emissions per 100 pounds of production by 62 percent, and its first-processing emissions per animal by 41 percent. Smithfield attributed the improvements to the divestiture of the beef group.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-EL-37">[37]</a> In 2010 it released its ninth annual Corporate Social Responsibility report, and announced its appointment of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_sustainability_officer" title="Chief sustainability officer">chief sustainability officer</a> and two sustainability committees.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-38">[38]</a>

<h3>Use of antibiotics</h3>

Concerns were raised about the use by the company and its contractors of low doses of antibiotics to promote the pigs' growth, in addition to using antibiotics as part of a treatment regime. The concern was that the antibiotics were harmful to the animals and were contributing to the rise of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance" title="Antibiotic resistance">antibiotic-resistant</a> strains of bacteria.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Deptolla_Smithfield_Foods_2011-39">[39]</a> Smithfield said in 2005 that it would administer antibiotics only to animals who were sick themselves, or who were in close proximity to sick animals; however, in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations all pigs are in close proximity to each other.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-40">[40]</a>

<h3>Operations in Mexico</h3>

The earliest confirmed case of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H1N1" title="H1N1" class="mw-redirect">H1N1</a> virus (swine flu) during the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic" title="2009 flu pandemic">2009 flu pandemic</a> was in a five-year-old boy in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Gloria,_Veracruz" title="La Gloria, Veracruz">La Gloria</a>, Mexico, near several facilities operated by Granjas Carroll de Mexico, a Smithfield Foods subsidiary that processes 1.2 million pigs a year and employs 907 people.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-FainaruMay102009-41">[41]</a> This, together with tension between the company and the local community over Smithfield's environmental record, prompted several newspapers to link the outbreak to Smithfield's farming practices. According to The Washington Post, over 600 other residents of La Gloria became ill from a respiratory disease in March that year (later thought to be seasonal flu). The Post writes that health officials found no link between the farms and the H1N1 outbreak.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-FainaruMay102009-41">[41]</a> Smithfield said that it had found no clinical signs of swine flu in its pigs or employees in Mexico, and had no reason to believe that the outbreak was connected to its Mexican facilities. The company said it routinely administers flu virus vaccine to its swine herds in Mexico and conducts monthly tests to detect the virus.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-42">[42]</a>

Residents alleged that the company regularly violates local environmental regulations.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-TuckmanApril292009-43">[43]</a> According to the Post, local farmers had complained for years about headaches from the smell of the pig farms, and said that wild dogs had been eating discarded pig carcasses left lying in the open. Smithfield uses <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_digestion" title="Anaerobic digestion">biodigesters</a> to convert dead pigs into renewable energy, but residents allege that they regularly overflow. Residents also feared that the waste stored in the lagoons would leak into the groundwater.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-FainaruMay102009-41">[41]</a>

<h3>Packaging reduction</h3>

In 2009, Armour-Eckrich replaced an oversized rectangular package for smoked sausage with crescent-style packaging. The new design reduced the amount of plastic film and corrugated cardboard the company used by more than 840,000 pounds per year. In addition, several plants are switching to or testing a new bagging system that helps reduce plastic use. The John Morrell plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, piloted the system for Smithfield in 2010, reducing the amount of plastic required by about 40,600 pounds a year. Farmland Foods reduced the amount of corrugated packaging entering waste streams by more than five million pounds per year. Smithfield Packing reduced the size of its tubs for deli meat, using 17 percent less plastic for each one. The company also cut the size of the boxes that transport chicken frankfurters to its largest customer, eliminating about 20,000 pounds of corrugated material a year.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-EL-37">[37]</a>

<h3>2010 Humane Society investigation</h3>

In December 2010, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humane_Society_of_the_United_States" title="Humane Society of the United States">Humane Society of the United States</a> (HSUS) released an undercover video taken by one of its investigators inside a Smithfield Foods facility.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-NYTStrom-26">[26]</a> The investigator worked for a month at Murphy-Brown, a Smithfield subsidiary in Waverly, Virginia.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-44">[44]</a> The Associated Press (AP) reported that the investigator videotaped 1,000 sows living in gestation crates. According to the AP, the material shows a pig being pulled by the snout, shot in the head with a stun gun, and thrown into a bin while trying to wriggle free. The investigator said he saw sows biting their crates and bleeding; staff jabbing them to make them move; staff tossing piglets into carts; and piglets born prematurely in gestation crates falling through the slats into the manure pits.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-AP-45">[45]</a> The video was a 2012 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webby_Awards" title="Webby Awards" class="mw-redirect">Webby Awards</a> winner in the "Public Service and Activism" category.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-46">[46]</a>

In response, Smithfield told the AP that it has "zero tolerance for any behavior that does not conform to our established animal well-being procedures."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-AP-45">[45]</a> The company asked <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin" title="Temple Grandin">Temple Grandin</a>, a professor of animal husbandry, to review the footage; she recommended an inspection by animal welfare expert Jennifer Woods.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-47">[47]</a> Smithfield announced on December 21 that it had fired two workers and their supervisor.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-48">[48]</a> At the company's invitation, the Virginia state veterinarian Richard Wilkes visited the facility on December 22. He told The Virginian-Pilot that Smithfield had been "very responsive and very responsible in how they've addressed the issues," and said he had not seen "any indication of abuse" of the pigs and was impressed by their demeanor. A Humane Society spokesman said that Smithfield had provided the vet "with a pre-announced, white glove tour."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-49">[49]</a>

<h2>Legal and labor issues</h2>

<h3>Working conditions</h3>

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Watch" title="Human Rights Watch">Human Rights Watch</a> (HRW) issued a 175-page report in 2005 documenting what it said were unsafe work conditions in the U.S. meat and poultry industry. In particular, the report said, workers make thousands of repetitive motions with knives during each shift, leading to lacerations and repetitive strain injuries. According to HRW, the workers' immigrant status may be exploited to prevent them from making complaints or forming unions. The report cited working conditions in Smithfield Foods as an example.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-HRW-50">[50]</a> According to the report, the speed at which the pigs are killed and processed makes the job inherently dangerous for workers. A Smithfield manager testified in 1998, during an unfair labor practices trial, that at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Heel,_North_Carolina" title="Tar Heel, North Carolina">Tar Heel</a> plant in North Carolina it takes between five and ten minutes to slaughter and complete the process of "disassembly" of an animal, including draining, cleaning, and cleaving. One worker told HRW that the disassembly line moves so fast that there is no time to sharpen the knives, which means harder cuts have to be made, with the resultant injuries to workers.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-51">[51]</a> Similar criticism has been made by other groups regarding Smithfield facilities in Poland and Romania.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Deptolla_Smithfield_Foods_2011-39">[39]</a>

<h3>Union dispute</h3>

<table class="vertical-navbox nowraplinks" style="float: right; clear: right; width: 22em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em; border-spacing: 0.4em 0px; text-align: center; line-height: 1.4em; background: rgb(249, 249, 249);" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5"><tbody><tr><td class="" style=" padding: 0.4em 0;"> </td></tr><tr><th class="" style="padding: 0.2em 0.4em; line-height: 1.2em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture" title="Agriculture">Agriculture</a></th></tr><tr><th class="" style=" padding: 0.1em;">General</th></tr><tr><td class="hlist" style=" padding: 0 0.1em 0.4em;">

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agribusiness" title="Agribusiness">Agribusiness</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_science" title="Agricultural science">Agricultural science</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agroforestry" title="Agroforestry">Agroforestry</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agronomy" title="Agronomy">Agronomy</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_husbandry" title="Animal husbandry">Animal husbandry</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensive_farming" title="Extensive farming">Extensive farming</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_range" title="Free range">Free range</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanised_agriculture" title="Mechanised agriculture">Mechanised agriculture</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_agriculture_ministries" title="List of agriculture ministries">Ministries</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_farming" title="Intensive farming">Intensive farming</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_animal_farming" title="Intensive animal farming">Intensive animal farming</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_crop_farming" title="Intensive crop farming">Intensive crop farming</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming" title="Organic farming">Organic farming</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture" title="Permaculture">Permaculture</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock-free_agriculture" title="Stock-free agriculture">Stock-free agriculture</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_agriculture" title="Sustainable agriculture">Sustainable agriculture</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_agricultural_universities_and_colleges" title="List of agricultural universities and colleges">Universities</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_agriculture" title="Urban agriculture">Urban agriculture</a></li>

</ul>

</td></tr><tr><th class="" style=" padding: 0.1em;">History</th></tr><tr><td class="hlist" style=" padding: 0 0.1em 0.4em;">

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture" title="History of agriculture">History of agriculture</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_organic_farming" title="History of organic farming">History of organic farming</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Agricultural_Revolution" title="Arab Agricultural Revolution">Arab Agricultural Revolution</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revolution" title="British Agricultural Revolution">British Agricultural Revolution</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution_%28Agriculture%29" title="Green Revolution (Agriculture)" class="mw-redirect">Green Revolution</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution" title="Neolithic Revolution">Neolithic Revolution</a></li>

</ul>

</td></tr><tr><th class="" style=" padding: 0.1em;">Types</th></tr><tr><td class="hlist" style=" padding: 0 0.1em 0.4em;">

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture" title="Aquaculture">Aquaculture</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics" title="Aquaponics">Aquaponics</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_farming" title="Dairy farming">Dairy farming</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grazing" title="Grazing">Grazing</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics" title="Hydroponics">Hydroponics</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock" title="Livestock">Livestock</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_farming" title="Natural farming">Natural farming</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchard" title="Orchard">Orchard</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_farming" title="Pig farming">Pig farming</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_farming" title="Poultry farming">Poultry farming</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranch" title="Ranch">Ranching</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharecropping" title="Sharecropping">Sharecropping</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep_husbandry" title="Sheep husbandry" class="mw-redirect">Sheep husbandry</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-and-burn" title="Slash-and-burn">Slash-and-burn</a></li>

</ul>

</td></tr><tr><th class="" style=" padding: 0.1em;">Categories</th></tr><tr><td class="hlist" style=" padding: 0 0.1em 0.4em;">

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Agriculture" title="Category:Agriculture">Agricultural</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Agriculture_by_country" title="Category:Agriculture by country">Agriculture by country</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Agriculture_companies" title="Category:Agriculture companies">Agriculture companies</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Biotechnology" title="Category:Biotechnology">Biotechnology</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Livestock" title="Category:Livestock">Livestock</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Meat_industry" title="Category:Meat industry">Meat industry</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Poultry_farming" title="Category:Poultry farming">Poultry farming</a></li>

</ul>

</td></tr><tr><td class="" style=" padding: 0.3em 0.4em 0.3em; font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Veranotrigo.jpg" class="image"><img src="/1205bdb3-7bc8-5347-a961-95fedcf7bc06.jpg"/></a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Agriculture_and_Agronomy" title="Portal:Agriculture and Agronomy">Agriculture and Agronomy portal</a></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: right;">

<ul>

</ul>

</div>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

The Smithfield Packing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, was the site of a long dispute between the company and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Food_and_Commercial_Workers_Union" title="United Food and Commercial Workers Union" class="mw-redirect">United Food and Commercial Workers Union</a> (UFCW), which had tried since the early 1990s to organize the plant's roughly 5,000 hourly workers.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Maher-52">[52]</a> Workers voted against the union in 1994 and 1997, but the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Board" title="National Labor Relations Board">National Labor Relations Board</a> (NLRB) alleged that unfair election conduct had occurred and ordered a new election. During the 1997 election the company is alleged to have fired workers who supported the union, stationed police at the plant gates, and threatened plant closures. In 2000, according to Human Rights Watch, Smithfield set up its own security force with "special police agency" status under North Carolina law, and in 2003 arrested workers who supported the union.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-HRW-50">[50]</a>

Smithfield appealed the NLRB's ruling that the 1997 election was invalid, and, in 2006, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of the NLRB.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-53">[53]</a> Smithfield and the workers at Tar Heel called on the UFCW to hold a new election, and the company agreed to pay half the cost of an independent observer, but the union argued that Smithfield would not allow a fair election and should have recognized <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_check" title="Card check">card-check</a> organizing.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-54">[54]</a> After a year-long series of public demonstrations, several lockouts, and a shareholder meeting that was disrupted by shareholders supporting the union, the UFCW called for a boycott of Smithfield products. In October 2007, Smithfield countered by filing a federal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act" title="Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act">RICO Act</a> lawsuit against UFCW.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-Maher-52">[52]</a> In October 2008, the UFCW and Smithfield reached an agreement, under which the union agreed to suspend its boycott campaign in return for the company dropping its RICO lawsuit and allowing another election. In December 2008, workers voted 2,041 to 1,879 in favor of joining the UFCW, bringing the 15-year fight to an end.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-55">[55]</a>

<h3>Justice Department penalty</h3>

In January 2009, Smithfield was assessed a $900,000 penalty by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Justice_Department" title="U.S. Justice Department" class="mw-redirect">U.S. Justice Department</a> to settle charges that the company engaged in illegal merger activity during its takeover of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_Standard_Farms" title="Premium Standard Farms">Premium Standard Farms</a> LLC in 2006.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-56">[56]</a>

<h2>Philanthropy</h2>

The Smithfield-Luter Foundation, established in 2002, is a non-profit organization that acts as the philanthropic wing of Smithfield Foods, dedicated primarily to providing scholarship opportunities to the children and grandchildren of Smithfield employees. It has given $5 million to Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, to establish the Luter School of Business, and $5 million to the University of Virginia Cancer Center in Charlottesville, Virginia.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-57">[57]</a> The Foundation also provides support for its "learners to leaders" programs, begun in 2006, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Denison, Iowa; and Norfolk, Virginia.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-58">[58]</a>

<h2>Opposition to Prop 37</h2>

Throughout 2012, Smithfield contributed $683,900 to a $46 million campaign known as "The Coalition Against The Costly Food Labeling Proposition," sponsored by some Farmers and Food Producers.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-59">[59]</a> The organization was set up to oppose an unsuccessful California citizen's initiative, known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition_37" title="Proposition 37" class="mw-redirect">Proposition 37</a>, that would have required mandatory labeling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-60">[60]</a>

<h2>Sports Sponsorships</h2>

In 2012, Smithfield announced a 15 race sponsorship with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Petty_Motorsports" title="Richard Petty Motorsports">Richard Petty Motorsports</a> and driver <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aric_Almirola" title="Aric Almirola">Aric Almirola</a> driving the #43 Ford in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASCAR_Sprint_Cup_Series" title="NASCAR Sprint Cup Series" class="mw-redirect">NASCAR Sprint Cup Series</a>. The sponsorship was then increased to 25 races beginning in 2013. Smithfield rotates its brands on the car, featuring Smithfield, Eckrich, Gwaltney, and Farmland. It is also the official food of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_International_Raceway" title="Richmond International Raceway">Richmond International Raceway</a> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrico_County,_Virginia" title="Henrico County, Virginia">Henrico County, Virginia</a> about an hour northwest of Smithfield HQ.

<h2>Governance</h2>

<dl>

<dt>Board of directors</dt>

</dl>

<ul>

<li>Joseph W. Luter, III, director since 1975</li>

<li>C. Larry Pope, director since 2006</li>

<li>Hon. Carol T. Crawford, director since 2000</li>

<li>Richard T. Crowder, director since 2011</li>

<li>Margaret G. Lewis, director since 2011</li>

<li>Wendell H. Murphy, director since 2000</li>

<li>David C. Nelson, director since 2008</li>

<li>Frank S. Royal, M.D., director since 2002</li>

<li>John T. Schwieters, director since 2001</li>

<li>Hon. Paul S. Trible, Jr., director since 2007<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-leadership-61">[61]</a></li>

</ul>

<dl>

<dt>Corporate officers</dt>

</dl>

<ul>

<li>C. Larry Pope, President and Chief Executive Officer</li>

<li>George H. Richter, President and Chief Operating Officer, Pork Group</li>

<li>Joseph W. Luter, IV, Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Pork Group</li>

<li>Robert W. Manly, IV, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer</li>

<li>Dhamu Thamodaran, Executive Vice President and Chief Commodity Hedging Officer</li>

<li>Dennis H. Treacy Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#cite_note-leadership-61">[61]</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Trilogy_%28book%29" title="An American Trilogy (book)">An American Trilogy</a> (2009)</li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation" title="Fast Food Nation">Fast Food Nation</a> (2001)</li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Business" title="Pig Business">Pig Business</a> (2009)</li>

</ul>

<h2>Notes</h2>

===

2006

<h3 class="">Smithfield, Tar Heel, N.C., Workers Continue Walk-Out at World's Largest Pork Plant for Second Day ; Company Continues to Refuse to Meet With Workers, Law Says Smithfield Not Required to Fire Employees for Social Security No Matches</h3>

</div>

</div>

TAR HEEL, N.C., Nov. 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Hundreds of predominantly Latino and African-American workers walked out of and shut down the world's largest pork processing plant yesterday in Tar Heel, N.C., in a spontaneous protest over a recent wave of firings at the plant. The walk-out continued this morning. Hundreds of workers arrived at the plant this morning at 5 a.m.

Smithfield Packing in Tar Heel has a long history of firing workers organizing for their rights. The U.S. Court of Appeals recently upheld the National Labor Relations Board findings that Smithfield threatened, harassed, fired and threatened with firing workers engaged in trying to secure the protection of a union contract. In another case, Smithfield was found to have used its private company police force to assault and threaten workers with arrest by federal immigration authorities.

"This is nothing new," says Gene Bruskin, director of the Smithfield Justice Campaign, "Smithfield consistently violates the law and uses threats, fear and intimidation to keep workers toiling in horrendous conditions."

The company claims that it fired workers who were unable to match social security numbers to their names which is in direct violation of the regulations of the Social Security Administration. Later, the company said it was complying with requests from the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Neither agency requires that workers be fired if there are discrepancies.

"Smithfield fired these workers following a spate of activities in which workers began to stand up and demand their rights. The timing reeks of Smithfield's continued pattern of intimidation and fear," continued Bruskin.

In Smithfield operations where workers are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), contract language provides for a systematic and constructive process for workers and the employer to resolve issues such as immigration and work status. "Smithfield is clearly using the 'no match' issue as a means to terrorize immigrant workers regardless of their legal status with the express purpose of suppressing the worker-led organizing that is reaching across racial lines in unprecedented numbers," said Bruskin.

Smithfield Tar Heel has been the subject of two Human Rights Watch reports documenting widespread dangerous conditions. A recent report by Research Associates of America, uses data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to document skyrocketing injuries at the plant. This year alone serious injuries rose at the rate of 80 percent.

The Smithfield Justice campaign -- http://www.smithfieldjustice.com -- a coalition of immigrant rights, civil rights, faith, labor and student groups has launched a holiday campaign to ask consumers not to use products from the Smithfield plant in Tar Heel at their holiday parties.

Contact: Leila McDowell of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, 202-728-1829, LMcDowell@ufcw.org or Web: http://www.smithfieldjustice.org

grist

The outbreak of a new flu strain — a nasty mash-up of swine, avian, and human viruses — has infected 1,000 people in Mexico and the U.S., killing 68. The World Health Organization <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSLP31018720090425">warned</a> Saturday that the outbreak could reach global pandemic levels.

Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork packer and hog producer, linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carroll, raise 950,000 hogs per year, according to the <a href="http://www.smithfieldfoods.com/our_company/our_family/GranjasCarroll.aspx">company Web site.</a>

On Friday, the U.S. disease-tracking blog <a href="http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html">Biosurveillance</a> published a timeline of the outbreak containing this nugget, dated April 6 (major tip of the hat to Paula Hay, who alerted me to the Smithfield link on the Comfood listserv and has <a href="http://peakoilentrepreneur.com/swine-flu-smithfield-foods">written about it </a>on her blog, <a href="http://peakoilentrepreneur.com/">Peak Oil Entrepreneur)</a>:

Residents [of Perote] believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to “flu.” However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak.

</blockquote>

From what I can tell, the possible link to Smithfield has not been reported in the U.S. press. Searches of Google News and the websites of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal all came up empty. The link is being made in the Mexican media, however. “Granjas Carroll, causa de epidemia en La Gloria,” <a href="http://www.marcha.com.mx/resumen.php?id=2128">declared</a> a headline in the Vera Cruz-based paper La Marcha. No need to translate that, except to point out that La Gloria is the village where the outbreak seems to have started. Judging from the article, Mexican authorities treat hog CAFOs with just as much if not more indulgence than their peers north of the border, to the detriment of surrounding communities and the general public health. Get this:

De acuerdo con uno de los habitantes de la comunidad, Eli Ferrer Cortés, los desechos fecales y orgánicos que produce Granjas Carroll no son tratados adecuadamente, lo que genera contaminación del agua y del viento en la region.

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My rough translation: According to one community resident, the organic and fecal waste produced by Granjas Carrol isn’t adequately treated, creating water and air pollution in the region. I witnessed — and smelled — the <a href="http://grist.org/article/counties/">same thing</a> in Hardin County, Iowa, a couple of years ago, another area marked by intensive industrial hog production. The article goes on to say that area residents have long complained of “fetid odors” in the air and water, and swarms of flies hovering around waste lagoons. Like their counterparts who live in CAFO-heavy U.S. areas, they also complain of respiratory ailments. Now, with 30 percent of the area’s residents now infected with the virulent flu bug, people are demanding that state and federal authorities inspect hog operations there. So far, reports La Marcha, the response has been: nada.

The Mexico City daily La Jornada has also <a href="http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/04/06/index.php?section=estados&article=030n1est">made the link</a>. According to the newspaper, the Mexican health agency IMSS has acknowledged that the orginal carrier for the flu could be the “clouds of flies” that multiply in the Smithfield subsidiary’s manure lagoons.

I’ll be in touch with contacts in Mexico as this story develops  — and I’ll be curious to see whether the U.S. media explores the link with Smithfield’s Mexico operation.

Note: In the original version of this post, I had called production at Granjas Carroll “nearly equal to Smithfield’s total U.S. production.” I had been confusing total production at Granjas Carroll — 950,000 hogs produced in fiscal 2008 — with the number of sows, or breeding pigs, kept by Smithfield in the United States. According to my source — <a href="http://www.nfu.org/wp-content/2007-heffernanreport.pdf">“Concentration of Ag Markets, 2007″</a> (PDF) by Hendrickson and Heffernan — Smithfield keeps 1.2 million sows. Actual hog production is much larger — thus Smithfield’s total U.S. hog production is much larger than Granjas Carroll’s. I regret the error.

Tom Philpott was previously Grist's food writer. He now writes for Mother Jones.

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