Boss Hog: Rolling Stone Gets Down in Pig Manure
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 12.31.06
Move over, Upton Sinclair and Michael Pollan. Make room for Jeff Tietz, who has written an extraordinary article in Rolling Stone, of all places, about how "America's top pork producer churns out a sea of waste that has destroyed rivers, killed millions of fish and generated one of the largest fines in EPA history" It is a dire and frightening tale. The first paragraph has perhaps the year's longest run-on sentence, designed to convey the scale of the industry and the analogy to human beings is stunningly effective.
"Smithfield Foods, the largest and most profitable pork processor in the world, killed 27 million hogs last year. That's a number worth considering. A slaughter-weight hog is fifty percent heavier than a person. The logistical challenge of processing that many pigs each year is roughly equivalent 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."
The article continues in that style, hitting you with statistics and similes. "A lot of pig shit is one thing; a lot of highly toxic pig shit is another. The excrement of Smithfield hogs is hardly even pig shit: On a continuum of pollutants, it is probably closer to radioactive waste than to organic manure. " and 26 million tons of it are discharged each year. Into holding ponds, sprayed on fields, leaking into rivers.
The article is primarily about shit. It briefly touches on animal welfare- "Smithfield's pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth." Which doesn't get much of a response from Smithfield Chairman Joseph Luter : "The animal-rights people," he once said, "want to impose a vegetarian's society on the U.S. Most vegetarians I know are neurotic."
It then goes back to looking at what is in pigshit, how it is dealt with, where it goes and how it gets into the environment.
People become vegetarians for various reasons; personal health and concern for animal welfare are big ones. It is likely that environmental concerns are becoming a major cause; since I started reading TreeHugger I have learned about the carbon footprint of a hamburger and the water footprint of a pound of meat. Learning about the shit footprint of a pound of pork has put me over the edge. I know what my New Year's resolution is: no more factory farmed meat. ::Rolling Stone
What do you mean "of all places?" Rolling Stone has long been a publication of well written, cutting edge political and social material. This kind of thing isn't going to show up in your Reader's Digest.
For a vertically integrated company like Smithfield, the pig shit is really a great resource. They currently have a pilot plant that is producing2,500 gal/day of biomethanol and if they could get that plant to scale they have an immense amount of energy resources to tap into.
The aspect of the lagoons overflowing and them overspraying by the agronomic uptake rate is unacceptable. The State Environmental Divisions and EPA need to oversee that much better.
I agree that ecological concerns are key to a lot of vegetarians. I know animal welfare and ecological concerns are why I stopped eating land mammals unless I could be sure of the source. This means I rarely eat meat at all, unless I can be sure the source is free range, chemical free.
the fact that rolling stone is covering this, which is also a surprise to me, is more evidence that the issues pollan and others have been working on are really sinking into public consciousness now. good news.
these sorts of issues were the main reason i had tried vegetarianism in the first place. i wonder how many ppl would reduce their meat consumption if they could see photos of these places on a regular basis. i decided a long time ago that, since vegetarianism was not really working for me, the solution personally would be a reduction of my personal meat consumption to only once every 1-3 days, and only 1x per day if possible. and of course, choose free range, small farm products whenever i can. (that is hard to do if you eat out a lot, isn't it!)
if we all reduced our meat consumption, maybe these farms could slow production enough to give these animals space, air, outdoor time, etc. if the pesticide/hormone use was stopped, and these farms went organic, their manure products could be used as safe organic fertilizers...
this is so typical of factory farms. if the bulk of society were to visit one of these places and look into the eyes of the suffering animals, they would probably still go out and order a big old ham for the holidays, but they would at least be more informed about where that ham came from. as for me, i will continue to eat vegetarian and when asked will gladly educate anyone interested in why i eat this way. and if you are concerned about the source of this article i.e. rolling stone, then you are sort of missing the point.
peace
Not that I don't like the post - great post - but that quote with the cities is asinine and misleading.
"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"
That's clearly only counting central city populations only. This is correct, but not what people really think about. The real, METRO population of NYC and LA alone is well over 27 million. Just my two cents - I despise population stats ignorance. Thanks.