IATP Hog Report - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Section 0
hog factories avoid the expenses associated with socially responsible
practices, such protections give hog factories leeway to grow and squeeze
independent family hog farmers out of the market.
VI. Pigs in the Poky
http://www.iatp.org/hogreport/sec0.html (8 of 11)2/27/2006 3:50:00 AM
Part Six: Pigs in the Poky describes the impacts of factory farming on
farm animals and their implications for human welfare.
Farmers who treat their animals with respect for their natures are
internalizing the costs of providing a decent life and humane environment
for them. Animal factories externalize those costs by evading that
responsibility. The first to bear these externalized costs are the animals but
the costs of the failure to farm in ways that respect the welfare of farm
animals extend beyond the boundary of the farm. Everyone ultimately
bears the costs of the reduced effectiveness of antibiotics. Taxpayers and
natural resource users bear the costs of soil and water pollution by liquid
manure spills. Future generations will bear the costs of global warming
and depleted resources. Until production systems meet the species-specific
needs of farm animals, we are farming beyond their ability to adapt.
Ultimately, ignoring the welfare of production animals makes animal
agriculture unsustainable.
Industrial rearing of farm animals has resulted in loss of individual
animals' fitness and in loss of genetic diversity. It has increased the
incidence of environmentally-induced animal illnesses, diseases, and
injuries as well as the frequency of abnormal behaviors indicative of
severe mental distress. Factory farming is pushing animals beyond their
ability to adapt. Consequently, many die prematurely from the stress. For
example, Time Magazine reported in November 1998 that the 1997 hog
death toll at Seaboard Farms in Oklahoma was 48 hog deaths an hour, or
420,000 for the year. Industry spokespeople estimate that as many as 20%
of breeding sows die prematurely from exhaustion and stress due to
impacts of restrictive confinement and accelerated breeding schedules.
Industrial hog rearing methods are especially hard on pigs in the breeding
herd who are confined to crates so narrow and short that they cannot walk
or turn around. The inactivity leads to muscle atrophy and osteoporosis.
Sows, adult females, may collapse and not be able to stand up again when
they are made to walk. They may be beaten and dragged before they are
killed and placed on the "dead pile" to be picked up by rendering trucks.
The mass production of farm animals in industrial systems has resulted in
a changed "disease panorama" across animal agriculture. New animal
diseases have emerged and they are harder and harder to treat. Animal
diseases also have consequences for the safety of food consumed by