Smithfield

"Ideal" Conditions or a Big McFib?

Wayne Pacelle | Posted 01.08.2012

Wayne Pacelle

If I told you that pigs confined in gestation crates -- cages barely larger than the animals' bodies, in which they don't have enough space even to turn around -- were living in "ideal" conditions where their "every need is met," you'd probably have a quarrel with that.

Resistance to Factory Pig Farming Gathers Steam

Tracy Worcester | Posted 05.25.2011

Tracy Worcester

Between 2005 and 2009, I made Pig Business by tracking US pork giant Smithfield Foods, Inc. as it swept into Poland and took advantage of cheap labor, poorly enforced environmental laws, and a government fragile in its post-communist years.

Leading Pork Producer Caught Severely Abusing Pigs

AP | Posted 05.25.2011

RICHMOND, Va. — The Humane Society of the United States said Wednesday that an undercover worker at a farm owned by the world's largest pork pro...

Humane Society Exposes Pig Breeding Horrors -- But It Doesn't Have to Be This Way

David Kirby | Posted 05.25.2011

David Kirby

Pork shoulder at my local supermarket costs 99 cents a pound, but zucchini cost $1.99 a pound. Why? Because American factory farms mass produce swine with such efficiency that the cash value of a pig's life has dwindled downward.

Will Big Ag Continue its Pointless Crusade Against Real Food on PBS?

Kurt Michael Friese | Posted 05.25.2011

Kurt Michael Friese

As food issues come out of the foodie fringe and into the mainstream, moneyed special interests are beginning to fear for their bottom lines just a little bit.

It Stinks to High Heaven

Javier Sierra | Posted 05.25.2011

Javier Sierra

The Mexican meat industry generates 130 million tons of fecal and urine matter each year, which often ends up in rivers and on coasts causing terrible environmental damage.

Reuters Mangles Flu Story and Blasts "Wild Theories" About "Evil Factory Farms"

David Kirby | Posted 05.25.2011

David Kirby

It's entirely possible that the Smithfield facility at La Gloria had nothing to do with this outbreak. But it's not exactly a "wild theory" -- Smithfield pigs are being tested for the new H1N1 strain as I write this.

What Airports and Factory Farms Have in Common: The Possible Smithfield/Swine Flu Connection

Leslie Hatfield | Posted 05.25.2011

Leslie Hatfield

If a commercial flight is a prime breeding ground for airborne infectious disease, consider the digs of modern hogs: factory farms.