| Submit your comments on this article | |
| China-Japan-Koreas | |
| New documentary sheds light on alleged dark side of pig farming industry: ‘A good American won't intentionally [ruin] another American's home' | |
| 2024-01-29 | |
“The Smell of Money,” directed by award-winning filmmaker Shawn Bannon, spotlights allegations of manure spraying, foul smells, water contamination, barns crowded with swine, and the plight of Elsie Herring as it uncovers an unsavory part of our food system. “When a corporate hog farm moves in — uninvited — on land her grandfather had purchased after claiming his freedom from slavery, Elsie Herring decides to fight back,” a tease of the documentary stated. The impact on communities of color is a focal point. “‘The Smell of Money’ is hard to take your eyes off,” Plant Based News wrote about the film. “Our goal for the film has always been to create an impact and inspire change,” producer Jamie Berger told Plant Based News. But it’s a message at odds with one offered by the North Carolina Pork Council. The agency maintains the farms are safe for people, animals, and the planet while generating 44,000 jobs. WHAT’S HAPPENING? The federal government estimates that 7.8 million pigs are being raised in North Carolina. The industry produces about $10 billion in revenue for the state each year, per the Pork Council. Unfortunately, the waste is accumulating as fast as the revenue. A 2020 blog from Duke University, a project for the spring 2019 environmental policy course, noted the smelly part of the industry: 10 billion gallons of excrement. “This excess of waste causes, predictably, massive problems both for the environment, and the people in the surrounding area,” Finn Doherty wrote. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? The hog industry has international ties and powerful interests. China’s WH Group acquired Virginia-based Smithfield Foods in 2013 for $4.7 billion in an effort to gain access to U.S. pork products for export to China, Reuters reported. A Vox story detailed lobbying between the powerful hog industry, politicians, and policymakers to ensure favorable conditions for business. And all the pork doesn’t come without smelly waste lagoons. A Vox photo showed a Smithfield hog farm complete with a wastewater pond, which isn’t exactly an ideal neighbor. “What makes you think you have a right to set up a hog farm and destroy my way of life?” a documentary participant said in a preview. Folks living near the massive meat facilities report nausea, anxiety, breathing problems, and environmental racism, as Vox reported. For the industry’s part, the pork council claims the farmers leverage expertise from scientists, government agencies, and others to operate safely, reducing “the environmental impact of … farms to protect public health.” Yet Don Webb, a former hog farmer, is now in the other camp. “A good American won’t intentionally stink up another American’s home,” he said in the film, per Plant Based News. Related: Smithfield Foods: 2024-01-27 Leadership Of Major US Landowner Smithfield Foods is Chock-Full Of Chinese Communist Party Members Smithfield Foods: 2023-07-18 How China Is Destroying American Farmland-And Getting All The Best Ham And Bacon! Smithfield Foods: 2022-06-12 Smithfield Foods to shutter California meat-packing plant | |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #14 Considering in the 80's 60% of Iowa's groundwater was contaminated with inorganic Nitrogen from the fertilizers. One of the big cash cows for the agri-pharma. Pit poop is smelly but does not build up in meat tissue, theirs or ours. |
| Posted by: Woodrow 2024-01-29 19:18 |
| #13 These attacks on the pork industry in North Carolina are nothing new. Back in the 1990s when I used to get the newspaper, they were running all kinds of articles on how evil the industry was. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2024-01-29 12:59 |
| #12 ^ Mmmmm Bacon Butter |
| Posted by: Frank G 2024-01-29 12:30 |
| #11 Was not the goal of the Rural Electrification Act to shed light on the dark side of farming? Nobody wants to get up early and milk a pig in the dark. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2024-01-29 12:04 |
| #10 When I was talking to a modern vineyard owner, i asked why the relatively recent number of vineyards that didn’t exist when I was a kid, and he said that after the tobacco buyout farms either became hog farms or vineyards. But yeah, NIMBY. When I was growing up here in NC, either tobacco or dairy cattle would let you know their presence depending on wind direction. And if you live in the northern front range of CO, like I did for 18 years, you know when the wind is coming from Greeley. Big deal. |
| Posted by: Bill Snirt8854 2024-01-29 09:50 |
| #9 #7 The industry produces about $10 billion in revenue for the state each year, per the Pork Council. How much revinue Elsie Herring generates? Does she actually farm? land her grandfather had purchased after claiming his freedom from slavery How many freed slaves had money to buy land? Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2024-01-29 03:04 ...FWIW, this is part of an interesting issue here in the Carolinas. When General Sherman came north from Savannah, Federal administrators gave former slaves the land they worked on, or other land confiscated from plantation owners. This land has stayed in these families for an amazing amount of time - here along the SC coast there are still substantial tracts of land owned by their descendants. Thing is though that the average age of these descendants has steadily increased over the years to the point where most of the current residents are senior citizens. It's hard for them to keep up the land, and more than a few are delinquent in taxes. So, for some years now - I had personal knowledge of this when I lived in Georgetown SC - very nice, well-dressed, and very polite men and women have shown up at these properties with literal suitcases full of money, and it's not an exaggeration in some cases to say it's more money than these folks have seen in their entire lives. A lot of people say no thanks, a fair number sign the paperwork and go. The point of all this is that once the paperwork's signed, these folks are on their own. I'd be thinking that Miss Herring simply didn't read the fine print - the land was almost certainly sold fair and square , and she's got no further say in the issue. And no matter how much her family got for the land, it ain't enough to fight the new owners. Mike |
| Posted by: MikeKozlowski 2024-01-29 08:12 |
| #8 I still remember a time when there were separate butcher shops to buy meat where you could see the carcasses being cut up, even in some supermarkets in the meat section. It's all generally hidden now. Don't want to upset the Karens and their feelings. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2024-01-29 07:08 |
| #7 The industry produces about $10 billion in revenue for the state each year, per the Pork Council. How much revinue Elsie Herring generates? Does she actually farm? land her grandfather had purchased after claiming his freedom from slavery How many freed slaves had money to buy land? |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2024-01-29 03:04 |
| #6 Pig shit is a valuable fertilizer. Don't tell me the Chinese owners just throw it away. IMO, this is typical (through the entire Western world, not just USA) NIMBY. |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2024-01-29 02:54 |
| #5 VOX is a joke |
| Posted by: newc 2024-01-29 02:13 |
| #4 A useful point, Skidmark. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2024-01-29 02:08 |
| #3 Enviro propaganda is enviro propaganda - doesn't matter whom it benefits. |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2024-01-29 00:37 |
| #2 The point of the story was, a Chinese firm raising pigs in America for export to China. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2024-01-29 00:33 |
| #1 Another enviro propaganda effort like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring? |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2024-01-29 00:32 |