Pig Business:
From the filmmaker:
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Four years ago, seasoned campaigner, eco-warrior and mother of three Tracy Worcester set out to discover who was paying the true price for the cheap imported pork for sale in Britain’s supermarkets. Her documentary PIG BUSINESS charts the rise of the factory farm in the USA and the spread of their intensive farming model into Europe.
The film focuses on the world's largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods of America. With 52,000 employees processing 27 million pigs per year in 15 countries, accruing annual sales around $11 billion in 2010, it is the most formidable influence in the pork industry. However, it is the entire system of intensive pig farming or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that has come under criticism. Up to a quarter of workers in factory farms suffer permanent lung damage from the ammonia emitted from biodegrading pig effluent, and neighbouring residents are sickened by the overpowering stench when the waste is sprayed onto often saturated fields. Untreated pig waste stored in open ‘lagoons’ have overflowed and leaked, contaminating wells and waterways. One spill in North Carolina in 1995 spewed 25 million gallons of noxious sludge into North Carolina’s New River and killed approximately eight to ten million fish. As North Carolina and other states have restricted aspects of factory farm operations, intensive pork producers have exported their dirty practices to Europe through former communist countries like Poland. Tracy Worcester takes us from the intensive Smithfield-owned pig factories in the US and Poland to the sausages on our supermarket shelves. The film reveals that huge meat factories overcrowd and mistreat the animals, put small farmers out of business, and pollute the water and air, endangering the health of local residents and consumers. Former workers admit to pumping the overcrowded animals with antibiotics to keep them alive. Richard Young, policy adviser to the UK Soil Association, warns of growing human resistance to antibiotics which are routinely used to prevent disease spreading among the overcrowded animals, and of new forms of “super bugs” emerging, including a new strain of MRSA which passes from pigs to humans. While the European Union subsidizes Smithfield operations in the name of helping Poland become more competitive, small-scale traditional farmers are being driven off the land as they can’t possibly out-compete these US corporate giants. Tracy Worcester’s message is that consumers have a choice. We need not stand by as corporations ride roughshod over communities, polluting the environment and destroying local economies. If we demand accurate supermarket labelling, so we can buy from truly local small farms and, if we reconnect direct with farmers via local butchers and farmers’ markets, we can reclaim high-quality, small-scale humane animal husbandry. We can help restore communities, and we can protect animal welfare, the environment, and human health. It’s possible to change direction. Through our purchasing power and policy pushes, we can take back control. Zac Goldsmith, Member of UK Parliament, writer and former editor of The Ecologist magazine. “What is casually described as ‘cheap food’ is so often nothing of the sort. This powerful film reveals the full impact of factory farming on people and the global environment, and exposes the horrors experienced by the pigs themselves. It will leave people in no doubt about the true cost of factory faming.” From the filmmaker: Official website | Trailer | Buy the DVD | Hosting materials Tags: , animal rights, pig, intensive farming, pig farm, pig farming, cafo, intensive agriculture No screenings of Pig Business are currently scheduled. Host one yourself!
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