Spills, Spying, Pollution, Labor Violations, Greed and Political Corruption Define an Industry.

In what appears to be a concerted and coordinated attack on critics of the growing number of corporate hog operations in the United States, the National Pork Producers Council and IBP have launched an attack on "any and all groups and individuals that may have a negative impact on our ability to produce pork," and who are creating a "hostile social and political climate for agriculture and livestock production."

A recent report generated for the NPPC by Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin and for which the NPPC paid some $48,000 sought to outline the "philosophies" of several "agricultural activist groups" who have opposed the various new corporate hog facilities being built throughout the U.S. at the expense of the many independent hog farmers among the NPPC's 80,000 members. "Only with such information can we intelligently assess the impact of key public policy issues on pork producers and then propose appropriate action to address those issues," the NPPC added.

Among those groups "investigated" by the New York public relations firm were the National Farmers Union, the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (ICCI), the Center for Rural Affairs, the Land Stewardship Project, the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, and yes, little ol' us, the Corporate Agribusiness Research Project.

If Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin did as thorough a job, however, "investigating" the other five groups as they did with the Corporate Agribusiness Research Project the NPPC certainly did not get their money's worth. No mention, for example, is made in the PR firm's report of the CARP's director's contributions as PrairieFire Rural Action's Research Director to that Iowa organization's long-standing and outspoken efforts to stem the economic and environmental devastation being wrought by corporate agribusiness to that state's pork-producing industry.

That organization, largely due to the efforts of PrarireFire's former assistant director Barb Grabner, has been struggling mightily for several years now to preserve the family-farm independence of the hog production in a state that leads the nation in the raising of the animals. She and her colleagues in the state's environmental movement have also been assisting numerous communities throughout that state in their efforts to get both local and state government agencies to become more aware and responsive to the critical economic and ecological health hazards corporate hog production is creating in the Midwest countryside.

Because these self-same corporate hog operations have spread to other states like North Carolina, Missouri, Minnesota, Mississippi, Kansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah, among others, there has now developed a movement to dispel many of the myths that the pork processing industry and their minions like the NPPC have been dispensing. One such effort is an incisive "Boss Hog" tract put together by Suzette Hatfield, Director of the Oklahoma Family Farm Alliance (see below).

Anyone curious as to the impact that such corporate hog factories are having on our nation's rural communities should read Patty Cantrell's excellent essay "Is the Family Farm an Endangered Species"(MS., March\April, 1997). The subject of Ms. Cantrell's piece is Martha Stevens, a long-time Missouri family farmer, and the organization she has helped form, Partners in Progress, to fight such giant corporate agribusinesses like Continental Grain from destroying their farm economy and countryside with giant-sized hog factories which are being established in their very midst.

In the essay Stevens vividly describes a typical aftermath of a recent hog waste spill from a nearby Continental hog factory. "A foamy scum covers black water; the odors of manure and urine are overpowering; dead fish are everywhere you look; all aquatic life is dead. It is completely silent; not a frog croaking; not a bird singing; not a leaf rustling....The water is undrinkable. The stream is dead for nearly ten miles.

Who Pays? Who Benefits?

Contrary to initial reports, the NPPC report, according to a Council spokesperson, was not paid for with producer checkoff money.The NPPC has claimed only that it did pay the New York public relations $3449 in non-checkoff cash for a "political report" on the farm activist groups.

But as farm columnist Alan Guebert rightfully notes: "while NPPC believes there is an important distinction as to how the political report was paid for, I believe it is irrelevant as to the money's origin. The fact it spied on farm groups who NPPC perceived as enemies is the story--not how they paid for it."

In 1996, the NPPC received approximately $45 million in pork checkoff funds from its more than 80,000 producers, however, approximately $24 million came from the nation's largest 40 producers who own a total of 1.7 million sows, or about one-third of all hogs produced in the U.S. The NPPC's primary purpose is to promote pork. Each producer is required to pay the Council 45 cents for every $100 worth of hogs marketed.

IBP, in announcing that because of a dwindling number of hogs in the Midwest, it planned to curtail its pork-processing operations and eliminate 1,050 jobs in Iowa, the heart of U.S. hog country, told the Wall Street Journal's Richard Gibson:

"More must be done to promote [agriculture], rather than tear it down," a company statement said. Asked to elaborate, an IBP spokesman pointed to what he called criticism of the pork industry by the media, politicians and others, plus the threat of legal actions to curtail large-scale pork operations, which bring with them odor and related environmental issues.

Such criticism "has made it increasingly difficult for pork producers of all sizes to reinvest or expand," he said.

But, a Des Moines Register March 2 editorial got it right when they noted:

"A strange charge, Iowa lived in perfect harmony with hog production for decades during which the nation's best farmers and the nation's best corn-growing soil made this the hog capital of the world. And when the the huge confinement operations arrived, Iowa bent over backward to accommodate them with a protective barrier of regulations.

"All Iowa asked in return was that the hog operations contain their wastes and to a degree, their odors. Because a few of the big operators have not, streams have been polluted with manure, and the air fouled with stench. And because state officials have reacted appropriately, Iowa is now tagged as unwelcoming."

IBP's Iowa problem appears to be a result of slumping production--currently about 6% below a year ago--and fewer producers: 27% of all US producers have left the industry
since 1995. In 1994, Iowa-based packers imported 10 million head from surrounding states. Yet with the subsequent decline in producers and production, Iowa imported only 8 million head in 1996. Between 1980 and 1994 the number of hogs produced in Iowa varied between 17 and 15 million while the number of producers plunged from approximately 64,000 to 29,000.

Compounding the current hog shortage is packer over-capacity. According to John Lawrence, an ag economist at Iowa State University, reports Guebert, packers can kill about 420,000 hogs per day in the US. "Today's kill is only 360 to 370,000," he relates, "which means they have a lot of overhead to eat.

"Spies for Hire"

Meanwhile, Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin, has a rather unique history, according to John Stauber, editor of PR Watch, a publication that covers the public relations industry.

It is regarded, as Stauber explains, the number one "spies for hire" in the U.S. Mongoven, the firm's president, was a public relations consultant for Nestle Foods, when the giant transnational firm was attempting to counter an international church-led boycott of the company's infant formula to women in third world countries.

PR Watch also notes that in 1991 Duchin, before a National Cattleman's Association convention, described "how corporations can defeat public interest activists."

He said that activists generally fall into four distinct categories: radicals, opportunists, idealists and realists.

To defeat activists, Duchin outlined, corporations must utilize a three-step, divide-and-conquer strategy. The goal is to isolate the radicals, "cultivate" the idealists, and "educate" them into being realists, then co-opt the realists into agreeing with the industry.

Boss Hog's Top Ten Myths About the Corporate Hog Industry

Myth #1: Pork producers provide jobs in declining rural areas.

FACT: For every job created by a hog factory, three more are lost. Most hog factories, which are highly automated, require few employees to operate. Every year, they put almost 31,000 farmers out of business, out of their homes and out of their communities. In 1980, there were 670,350 family hog farms; in 1995, there were only 208,780.

Myth #2: Corporate farming is better business: more efficient and more profitable for the community.

FACT: The Nebraska Swine Enterprise Records and Analysis Program studied the most profitable hog operations for 1993/94. The most profitable had only 145 sows. These independent operations were also better for their communities. A Virginia Tech study compared the economic impact of 50 family farms adding 100 sows each versus a corporate farm adding 5000 sows. The family farms created ten percent more permanent jobs, provided a 20% larger increase in local retail sales, and realized an increase in per capita income of 37%.

Myth #3: The smell of hog manure may be bothersome for sensitive people, but it is not harmful.

FACT: The odor is unhealthy. It is a soup of toxic gases including hydrogen sulfide and ammonia. Dr. Susan Schiffman, of Duke University Medical Center and a leading expert in odor, says that those who live near hog factory farms suffer a variety of ills including depression, tension, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, respiratory problems, sleep disturbances and loss of appetite.

Myth #4: Manure from corporate hog farms is no different than manure from other livestock operations such as cattle feedlots. Plus, it's good for the land since it's sprayed on fields.

FACT: Hog manure is not herbivore manure like cattle excrement, which poses minimal hazards to humans. Hog manure is omnivore manure, much like human waste, and carries with it parasites, bacteria and viruses, including streptococcus, giardia, salmonella, listeria, chlamydia, along with avian botulism and cholera.

Hog waste is high in nutrient value. This may sound good, but it means that excess nitrogen and phosphorus are present in the manure. When these are washed into groundwater, they can trigger an explosion of algae growth that kills fish. An even more serious consequence for humans is methemoglobinemia, or "blue baby syndrome," a condition, often fatal, in which the blood cannot absorb oxygen.

A North Carolina investigation tested groundwater in fields where hog manure had been sprayed. Contamination was found almost everywhere. Many rural residents draw water for themselves and their livestock from shallow wells subject to such groundwater pollution.

According to Dr. Leon Chesnin, professor emeritus of waste management and utilization at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, nitrates leach into the soil slowly and build up over time. When contamination is detected, it is already irreversible. After the animals are removed, it takes 40 years for the earth to clean itself of the nitrate pollution!

Myth #5: The system for disposing of hog manure is sanitary.

FACT: Manure, urine and water are mixed together and are pumped into open pits called lagoons. Some of these cesspits hold as much manure as 200 Olympic-sized swimming pools! This hog waste is applied to land surfaces via sprayers which shoot the manure mix 50 feet into the air. Many corporate hog factories have upwards of 200,000 animals. Their manure lagoons are the equivalent of huge open sewers for a city of 400,000 people!

Ammonia clouds form over the areas where there are many open lagoons. They are changed in the atmosphere to nitrous oxides which cause acid rain. This rain causes toxic algae blooms in rivers and streams.

Myth #6: Standards are so strict that lagoons do not leak.

Lagoons do leak. As a matter of fact, they have leaked in every state where there has been a hog industry.

In 1995, a 25-million gallon torrent of manure flowed from a lagoon in North Carolina into the New River, killing fish for 20 miles. The Neuce River, also in North Carolina, was so polluted from hog factories that a massive, toxic algae bloom caused it to be quarantined for 35 miles during the summer of 1995. In Missouri, last year, a frozen pipe burst sending 20,000 gallons of hog manure into Mussel Fork Creek, destroying the ecosystem for ten miles. In 1995 alone, there were three major spills reported in Iowa, two in Minnesota, and nine in Missouri.

Myth #7: Corporate hog farms must meet strict state standards and are monitored.

FACT: These hog factories operate with virtually no state oversight! They are on an honor system for compliance with state standards and are subject to no state water quality testing. This system has failed in Kansas. One such failure was a Seaboard Farms lagoon which leaked at six times the rate allowed by state regulations. This lagoon had been certified as compliant by Seaboard's engineer.

Seaboard also operates in Oklahoma. Water metering is not required in Oklahoma. Almost six billion gallons of fresh water are already dedicated to swine production each year in the state.

In European countries such as the Netherlands, large livestock confinement operations have proved so toxic that they have become strictly regulated. Police officers and inspectors patrol the waste disposal sites and fine the companies for each violation.

Myth #8: Corporate hog farms are state-of-the-art when it comes to animal care.

FACT: These operations are not humane. A breeding sow is kept in a metal gestation crate, 18-24 inches wide and slightly longer than the sow's body. She spends her entire pregnancy in this crate, four months, unable to walk or turn around. Her head is positioned at a feed trough, her feces collected at the other end of the crate. In Europe, laws are being enacted to outlaw such gestation crates.

Pigs being fattened for slaughter are confined to pens which allow six to seven square feet per animal. Keeping in mind that these hogs grow to 250 pounds, it's easy to picture crowding such that the animals struggle to turn around. In some pens, the animals are so packed in that they cannot lie down. They are washed, fed, watered and medicated by machine. They never see the outside world, spending their time in a building filled with ammonia and hydrogen sulfide fumes. In contrast, pigs in their natural environment are clean, social animals, which separate their eating and defecating areas.

Myth #9: Corporate hog farms and packing plants are good for economic development and are positive community forces.

FACT: The appearance of hog factories in a community may provide a short-term economic boost to long-term crisis. Sales tax revenues skyrocketed because of the erection of factory buildings and slaughterhouses. These facilities are primarily constructed by out-of-state companies, such as Hog Slat Inc. of North Carolina, which utilize a migrant work force and take their profits with them. Also, many small cities, such as Guymon, Oklahoma, pass sales tax increases to provide incentives for the hog industry. Revenue increases are partially attributable to the higher tax rate.

When the hog factories come in, the slaughterhouses follow, with a whole new set of problems. because meatpacking has the highest injury rate of any industry in the United States, and because wages are low and turnover is high, companies turn to immigrant labor to fill jobs. "Pipelines" between Mexico and the United States connect illegal aliens with their jobs in the slaughterhouses. The Immigration and Naturalization Service has estimated that 25% of workers in Iowa and Nebraska packing plants are illegals. A short afternoon "bust" in Guymon on November 24, 1996, led to 61 deportations.

In towns like Storm Lake, Iowa, the cost of providing federally mandated English as a second language (ESL) classes has far exceeded state and federal funds allotted for the program.

Often, a packing company will endow a clinic or hospital as a gesture of goodwill upon moving into a community. In Storm Lake (Ed. Note: home to IBP's major meatpacking facility), the $2.4 million in annual unpaid medical bills vastly surpassed corporate charity. The alien work force has brought other unwelcome gifts to the community: parasites, plague and tuberculosis.

In 1995, the Guymon school district had to instigate ESL classes for the first time because of the influx of immigrant labor at the nearby Seaboard plant. Mushrooming growth of the corporate hog industry in Texas County has caused crime to skyrocket in Guymon. Crime has increased an incredible 400% in the last two years! Statistics do not include the explosion of vandalism and bogus checks in Texas County.

Myth #10: The corporate hog industry has a great history.

FACT: Every state which has allowed hog factories has been compelled to restrict them. Minnesota, Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina and other states have enacted legislation to either prevent establishment of new operations or to impose strict environmental regulations on existing factories.

A record of spills, pollution, labor violations, greed and political corruption defines this industry.