For La Gloria, the stench of blame is from pig factories

[ensho]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/for-la-gloria-the-stench-of-blame-is-from-pig-factories-1675809.html


The worried manager of an industrial-sized pig farm in the little Mexican town of Xaltepec invited in journalists in an effort to calm things down. "What happened was an unfortunate coincidence," he told them, insistently. More than 2,000 miles away, in New York, the world's richest "pig baron", Joseph Luter III, is hoping he is right.

Downwind of Xaltepec – where 15,000 squealing hogs are squeezed into 18 warehouses – residents of La Gloria blame Smithfield, Luter's firm, for an outbreak of respiratory problems that swept the town last month, killing two children. Now with Mexican authorities identifying a four-year-old from the town, Edgar Hernandes, as one of the first-known cases of swine flu, furious residents believe that they are ground zero of a pandemic threatening the world. The very suggestion has sent a shudder through the ranks of campaigners who have long argued that the sort of industrialised pig farming that has turned Smithfield into one of the most powerful corporations in the US, with a market value of $1.4bn, was a disaster waiting to happen.

For Smithfield, the world's largest pork supplier, which processes more than one in three pigs killed in the US and jointly owns the Xaltepec plant and seven others in the region, the spiralling concern in Mexico threatens to become a worldwide marketing disaster – even before anyone is able to test the hunch of the people of La Gloria.

-snip-

The business practices of Smithfield are a far cry from its origins, lovingly recounted in sepia-tinted prose on its corporate website. "The Luter family of Smithfield, Virginia, has been curing and selling hams since the turn of the century," it says.

The reports of swarming flies, terrible smells and pictures of rotting pigs left scattered around the perimeter of its industrialised pig farms in Mexico are echoes of the concerns that have long been troubling environmental activisits, campaigning against Smithfield in all the countries in which it operates, not least in the US. Critics say that – even on top of any questions about the humane treatment of the pigs – the sheer quantities of manure that have to be disposed of when thousands, or tens of thousands, of animals are housed together make it impossible to run this business in a safe way.

-snip-

Smithfield says it is always investing in research to improve farming methods and operates its facilities to the highest standards. Its public relations message is complicated, however, by the uncompromising stance of chairman Joseph Luter III. Animal rights activists "want to impose a vegetarian society", the 67-year-old once said, and vegetarians are "neurotic".
-------------------------


Joseph is a criminal

down with pig shit Ponds of destruction - where ever they may be found.

down with all Barons

[flvegan]

1. We do of course have the option of not eating them.

Just an observation.

[Mari333]

2. yep nt

[ensho]

4. do we have the option of ignoring the pig shit ponds of destruction?

this has nothing to do with eating meat or not.

it has to do with pollution and disease caused by the meat Barons.

[flvegan]

7. See, here's the thing

If the demand for a product decreases, the ill effects created by said product also decreases. Suffice to say, if people ate fewer hogs, there would be less hog waste.

One could also suggest that intense confinement in the agricultural sector be outlawed. Every hog would have to be some sort of free range, only so many head per acre, etc. Demand would have to decrease, or bacon would be $20/lb. Either way, no more manure pits.

To say that the pollution from a factory farm has nothing to do with eating meat is just being ignorant of the facts.

[undeterred]

3. Two bad things don't necessarily have a cause and effect relationship.

Swine flu and corporate hog farming...

[ensho]

5. however in this case they do

nt

[undeterred]

6. How has that been scientifically established?

I must have missed that.

[ensho]

8. you missed it

nt