Hog farms in North Carolina are wreaking havoc on the state – affecting the local environment, wildlife and human health. The voluminous pollution generated by hog farms is a growing problem in the US and is intensified by the modern system of factory farming.
By John McCabe
thescavenger.net
14 August 2011
When pigs live in a natural, wild environment they walk and explore many miles a day, and sleep with other pigs in a bed of twigs and/or grass. They are clean, smart, and social animals.
Today, most pigs that are bred for human consumption are raised indoors in smelly, filthy, noisy conditions with cement floors that deform their feet. They are kept in cramped pens and fed horrible diets that are a far cry from what they would naturally eat.[snip]
“Basically, pork producers figured out some years ago that if they packed the maximum number of pigs into the minimum amount of space, if they pinned the creatures down into fit-to-size iron crates above slatted floors and carved out giant ‘lagoons’ to contain the manure – if they turned the ‘farm,’ in short, into a sunless hell of metal and concrete – it made everything so much more efficient”, says Matthew Scully in a 2006 article.
[more…]
