Will SSS feel guilty for eating so much bacon? For contributing to pig shit poisoning of ‘Murika? I doubt it.
Something stinks in North Carolina, and we’re not talking about the Charlotte Hornets. A documentary filmmaker who flew spy drones over North Carolina pig farms claims to have captured video footage showing oceans of untreated animal waste. The unappetizing aerial footage, some of which was posted on YouTube Wednesday, features sprawling panoramic shots of dark brown lagoons oozing into the green Carolina countryside, in some cases close to residential areas, the filmmaker said.
Mark Devries, a documentarian who took on factory farming in the 2013 film “Speciesism: The Movie,” shot the drone footage as part of a two-year investigation into the public-health consequences of waste management on farms operated by Smithfield Foods Inc. — the largest pork producer in the country. In a phone interview Wednesday, Devries said he first became aware of the “toxic cesspools” after speaking with neighbors who live near Smithfield facilities in Eastern North Carolina.
“I was shocked,” Devries said. “Pig manure is fairly similar to human waste, so it would be similar to having a pit of untreated human sewage the size of several football fields out in the open — and in many cases, right in the vicinity of people’s homes.”
Kathleen Kirkham, a spokeswoman for Smithfield Foods, said the company stands by its environmental track record and noted that permits and records for its facilities are publicly available. She said state and federal regulators “sign off” on the company’s treatment systems, and Smithfield facilities are subject to regular visits from inspectors.
“On our farms we strive to be good neighbors and respect the rights and property of those who live near our operations,” Kirkham said in an email. “We work closely with all of our farmers to meet strict environmental management policies that encourage continuous improvement and exceed most state and federal compliance standards.”
The meat-packing giant is no stranger to criticism from environmentalists and animal-rights groups, and its “sea of waste” once earned it one of the largest fines ever from the Environmental Protection Agency, Rolling Stone reported in 2006.
Devries said his aerial footage offers a more detailed look at the company’s facilities than has previously been seen by the public. To capture the footage, he used a Hexakopter XL, a heavy-lifting drone built to carry camera equipment across long distances. The drone was equipped with a GPS and software to help stabilize it against heavy winds. Other consumer-model drones were used as well. He said the aerial vehicles were necessary to capture parts of the facilities that are obscured by trees and barbed wire.
Devries said Smithfield management wasn’t aware of his investigation.
The project is likely to further spur the debate over “ag-gag” laws, which make it illegal to conduct undercover investigations at agricultural facilities. A number of states have enacted ag-gag legislation in response to animal-rights groups that capture footage of alleged wrongdoings at factory farms.
In North Carolina, an ag-gag bill failed to pass the state legislature earlier this year, meaning Devries is in the clear on that front.
Although ag-gag is often framed as an animal-rights issue, such laws also meet with fierce opposition and legal challenges from free-speech advocates. “The issue that it brings up is a much broader issue of laws criminalizing information gathering by the press,” Devries said. “It’s a pretty remarkable phenomenon if you think about laws being passed by state legislators for the purpose of preventing people from exposing the wrongdoing of these industries.”
Devries isn’t the only person using drones to capture footage of factory farms. Will Potter, a Washington-based journalist and one of the plaintiffs challenging ag-gag legislation in Idaho, raised more than $75,000 on Kickstarter earlier this year for his project, “Drone on the Farm: An Aerial Expose.”
Devries said he hopes his footage spurs more public discussion about “the environmental consequences and public-health consequences of these massive open pits of toxic waste.”
I thought it would be turned into manure for fields. I have heard that poultry farms have about poisoned most rivers in Arkansas. The run off of pest control products into streams isnt good for fish either as a man from Iowa explained to me. He said the streams were about dead.
Pig shit smells nasty.
Just curious…
Not defending Smithfield foods, but everyone is okay with some dickhead flying a drone over what is essentially private property?
Fucker tried that around here, he wouldn’t have a drone very long…
You guys don’t know how much I fucking HATE drones… I mean really… I’d like to find the asshole who invented them and just break my foot off in his ass…
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We shoot drones in S.C…..ask PETA…..we shot one of theirs at a friend’s plantation….it’s on youtube.
” …. but everyone is okay with some dickhead flying a drone over what is essentially private property?” ———- Billy
Good question. Who “owns” the air above your property?
This legal concept is encoded in the Latin phrase — Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad caelum et ad inferos —- (“For whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to Heaven and down to Hell.”).
Then came blimps, hot air balloons, and airplanes. Now what?
From what I could quickly find; everything below 83 feet is private and belongs to the property owner ….. everything above 500 feet is public. It’s the stuff in-between that is unclear. But, the FAA seems to be regulating that airspace also.
To answer your question; No. Smithfield Foods is a giant conglomerate that does lots of nasty shit (pun intended), they break laws all the time … so, fuck them and their privacy. And, yeah, I know that sounds hypocritical.
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“But the decision still left a gap. If the air above 500 feet is public property, and the air below 83 feet is private property, what about the space in between?
This is the territory that entrepreneurs dreaming of drones have their eyes on.
Cy Brown, for example, wants to use drones to tackle the problem of feral wild pigs. In Louisiana, where Brown lives, feral pigs run around wrecking crops, causing problems for farmers.
Brown’s idea was to use drones to track the pigs and then relay their locations to hunters in the fields who could kill the pigs. He tested it out, and it worked. Farmers liked it. Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture wanted to copy it.
But when I called Cy last month to ask if he’d take me hunting, he said no. His drone had been grounded. When I asked why, he referred me to his lawyer.
Cy’s lawyer told me that the FAA has been sending out cease-and-desist letters to commercial drone pilots all over the country, threatening big fines for flying little drones. The FAA says that, for safety reasons, it is regulating the airspace between 83 and 500 feet.
Drone pilots are fighting this in court, trying to reclaim that airspace.”
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/30/317074394/drone-wars-who-owns-the-air
I feel better now knowing that I never eat bacon.
From the title, I thought this was the thread about Obama’s State of the Union speech…
Smithfield is now owned wholly by the Chinesse, no?
China does own Smithfield.
I fly quadcopters Billy, the difference is I dont put cameras on them. If your worried about being photgraphed the sattelites already do that..
Can see it on Google Earth by searching – 34.8136455815, -78.7821929368
I read somewhere about the pig farms, they spray a lot of the crap into the air to let the wind disperse it.
My buddy worked in an aircraft plant, he said they were not supposed to outgas into the surrounding community of Burbank but they did so late at night.
A chopper pilot on TV said they can tell where they are in LA from the different smells, stinky stuff.
Well, this is factory farming standard operating procedure. I lived on a farm as a kid and got to know our hogs. Some were pretty funny and had a sense of humor. I especially liked the little guys when they were about 6 or 8 weeks old. Moved as a herd and anything would spook them, so opening the barn door to the driveway was a treat-they’d scatter everywhere. We actually had “slop”, so I slopped the hogs mornings before catching the school bus and then again when I got home. My Dad worked in the city and would get “brewery slop” from one of the breweries for about $2 a 500 gal load. Pigs loved it, especially when it was still warm, and there was lots of grain. Ever see a drunk pig? They lined up at the trough like cops at a bar!
But we never treated our hogs like these bastards. They could roam an entire field and we let the sows birth in a nice barn stall with straw. I can’t imagine treating farm animals like these bastards do.
It’s not a matter of satellites or helicopters or 83 feet or 500 feet or the FAA…
It’s the fucking principal of the thing.
I did have other things to say, but I decided to delete them…
I think there is already a law restricting their use by real estate agents who were using them to get aerial photos of houses.
“It’s the fucking principal of the thing.” ——— Billy
We’re talking about Smithfield, right?
Whose principles are you concerned about? Theirs?? They have …. none. Bring a knife to a fist fight. Bring a gun to a knife fight. You think Chink-o owned Smithfield is gonna voluntarily admit — “Hey, we’re polluting the living shit out of your countryside!” Do ya? They play dirty … you play dirtier.
“I did have other things to say, but I decided to delete them… ” ——– Billy
Say ’em. Won’t hurt my feelings (if that’s what concerns you).
G’night. See ya in the AM.
It’s the price of cheap meat.
But doubtless, Smithfield owns zero of these “small family farms”. They can induce farmers to take out Dept of Agriculture guaranteed loans to build the infrastructure for these large concentration camps and then work far cheaper than they can hire workers at a company owned facility. By contracting out the lowest profit margin stuff, they also take zero responsibility for the waste.
The book, The Meat Racket, covers it well even though it’s about Perdue chicken. Same thing though.
Raising hogs for meat and doing it in a manner that is responsible to the welfare of the animal while it is alive, good for the environment and fertility of the farm and produces a healthful and delicious product for the person sitting down to a meal of pork takes a lot of human effort and management. The word is husbandry. To do so without the use of GMO feeds, concentrations of waste, phosphorus loading, etc is at the very least a break even proposition when the final product brings a price point around 2.5 times higher than what is available at the average grocery store.
People will never brag about how cheap their car was, what low end price they paid for their house, what bargain rate clothing or cosmetics they regularly use, but they will, 9 times our of 10 look for the cheapest price when it comes to what they put in their shopping cart and eventually their bodies. They don’t take into account the treatment of the animal in these operations- at best it is equivalent to a concentration camp . They don’t give a thought to the eventual harm it does to the surrounding soil and water, they don’t think about the effects of the pass through chemicals from pesticides and antibiotics to GMO genes, nitrates, nitrites, bleach and herbicides contained in the flesh of these animals and the long term health consequences of consuming them. They see the family farmer selling a pound of uncured, maple smoked bacon for $15 a pound and think “elitist”.
The problem isn’t in the poor redneck who makes his deal with the Smithfield devil and indebts himself to a CAFO just to save the farm, it isn’t in the Chinese business that profits off the venality and penury of the average American “consumer”, it isn’t the AgriCorp peddling their genetic mutations at the cost of our soils and open pollinated species, it isn’t the grocery chains and big box stores with their lowest common denominator customer base using FSA taxpayer subsidized free food cards to lard on as many extra pounds as their radically reduced lifespan will allow. The problem is people being so out of touch with nature and reality that they don’t see nor understand the very nature of their own existence apart from their role as a consumer in a race to the bottom.
Eating is something we all do, I can say this with confidence. Nourishing our bodies is something only a thoughtful and purposeful human being does. You are what you eat. When you begin to eat keeping all these things in mind you begin to change- physically your body becomes healthier, leaner, fitter, more capable of healing when injured, more resilient when fighting off illness and disease, your eyesight, joints, musculature and bone density improve or last longer. You see the effects of your choices when ypou look outdoors and at your environment, you enter into relationships with people who actually raise the crops and the animals you consume and benefit them and their efforts which in turn benefits the environment. You improve the lves of the crops and the animals you are eating by giving them better environments in which to live and lives in tune with their nature and diets based on what they require rather than on what makes them fatter faster. There may be a downside to it, but I haven’t found it yet.
Those lagoons of swine manure and urine filled with chemical residue are what the average consumer looks like inside. It is their world view and lifestyle made manifest.
The bounties of this Earth, the flavors of woodland and pasture, fruit and grain turned into flesh, the health benefits of clean foods, fresh from your local farmer or gardener, the thriving and living soil nourished by the decomposed manures of healthy well fed livestock covered in lush growth, year after year, the quality of the water filtered through spongy soils alive with billions of micro organisms- these are gifts given to us for little more than ur commitment to do what we know is right, what we can see is beneficial for ourselves, our families, our communities and our planet.
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.”
We’re talking about Smithfield, right?
Whose principles are you concerned about? Theirs??
You’re not getting it…
You justify sacrificing what is right by doing egregious shit like flying a drone over some suspected dirtbag’s property without a warrant, and then the fucking State will use that as “precedent” to fly their shit over your property… maybe you spoke out against the HNIC and it was brought to someone’s attention, so they go after you… or copfuks on a fishing expedition, trying to bust someone, anyone…
I don’t have a problem with model aircraft… I have a problem when they’re outfitted with HD cameras and Doppel radar that can see into my house through the walls, and then flown over my property without a warrant…
You’re allowing your dislike of the Chinks and Smithfield to override your good sense, Stucky… if you want to bust them, then do it within the boundaries of the law. Just don’t make shit up because they’re doing egregious shit, because today it’s them… tomorrow, it’s us…
“I did have other things to say, but I decided to delete them… ” ——– Billy
Say ‘em. Won’t hurt my feelings (if that’s what concerns you).
No offense, but your feelings don’t concern me in this instance… and that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
Those lagoons of swine manure and urine filled with chemical residue are what the average consumer looks like inside. It is their world view and lifestyle made manifest.
That comment alone should get me on the straight and narrow …. : )
I am all for doing away with large Corprate farms. Small family farms that’s the only way to go!!
Billy, I totally agree with you. If I see a drone over my place I’ll start throwing lead at it.
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hardscrabble farmer
Wish I could give you 100 thumbs up for your post, I really do.
My sister became a vegetarian for just one reason … many years ago she saw a documentary on how these animals were treated on a factory farm, and that was the end of meat eating for her. Just. Like That. I think she went overboard … but, I do understand her reasons.
I don’t remember the title. But, there’s a 12 minute video about Factory Farming — “Farm To Fridge” — that’s so disgusting you need to verify your age on youtube to see it. But, one can see it here without doing so. It’s really, really, really sickening.
I think I’ll just eat cereal today.
“You’re allowing your dislike of the Chinks and Smithfield to override your good sense, Stucky… if you want to bust them, then do it within the boundaries of the law.” ———- Billy
I understand what you are saying. I even agree. In my first comment above, I even admitted my stance was “hypocritical”. That’s not false modesty …. I meant it.
I’m sure it’s due to extreme frustration on my part. The evidence seems to point in the direction that it’s IMPOSSIBLE to fight .. and WIN … against these mega-farm-factory cocksuckers. Just look at Monsanto … they do what they want, when they want, how they want …. and I imagine their corporate management just laughs their asses off at the peons who try to oppose them.
Let me clarify something. I would not fire on a military drone as in the pic above. That would be suicide by US military.
These pig farmers are doing it all WRONG!
Didn’t they watch “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”?
You turn all that pig shit into METHANE and power Bartertown!
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(Until the delusional moonbats at the EPA shut it down, since they are currently waging a war on methane lately. Must have been too much farting in the halls of government lately, heh..)