I wonder if people in Chicago are asking why there is all this talk about hog farming on the front page of their newspaper (“Rift in pork industry butchers farm unity,” March 21). Who passes a hog farm on their way to work in the Loop, and who cares?
The hog farm issue is about the corporatization of agriculture. The ownership of the materials and processes of agriculture are passing from the farmer to globally oriented corporations by the usual means of mergers, acquisitions and integration.
Seed companies are being bought up; the seeds are genetically altered and patented. Animals are gene-altered and patented. Chemical and drug companies dominate the animal-health industry, and these drugs are patented. Fertilizers and pesticides made by chemical companies are patented.
The hog factory is another step on this road. The chicken was the first to be stuffed into cages on the factory farm, and the farmers lost that income. Next in line is the dairy cow, who will stand in feed lots by the thousands, injected with rBGH by the moguls of industry.
We should care deeply about this because the nutritional value of our food is at stake. We should be concerned about the growth hormones, reproductive hormones, vaccines, antibiotics and other drugs used on our food animals, as well as pesticides, herbicides, larvicides, etc. they regularly ingest. And how do you get safe food from animals living in the filthy conditions of the factory farm, a haven for pathogens like salmonella and E. coli?
Your article was the first I’ve seen that mentions the involvement of animal-rights activists. But human beings don’t need this label to feel compassion for the misery of factory-farmed animals, who are denied movement, fresh air, sunshine, mothering of their young or any expression of their natural instincts. Empathy and kindness are not Luddite sentiments. Even gratitude toward these animals who give us so much would not be amiss.
