APR 4

20. APR 4

Assigned Work

• Genoways, The Chain, C7, “From Seed to Slaughter” 97-112 (15)

In-Class

• Reports on documentary viewing.

• Student presentation: "Infiltrating Florida's Animal-slaughter underground"
• Christoper J, Maggie, and Oliva L

• ”Regulatory Capture”
• Slaughter vs. Hyperslaughter

Genoways, The Chain, C7, “From Seed to Slaughter”

• Hog farming in the US. 674 farms, average of 26 pigs per farm, but contract farms are much larger. [1]

• Story of LB pork. Lynn Becker, multi-generational pig farmer, hoping to boost from 50,000 to 100,000 pigs per year. This is big.

• get a call from PETA about a breeding operation he had recently bought: 6,000 sows, 10s of 1,000 of piglets. MowMar farms. “Farrow to wean operation.”

• secret video. P. 99. Becker genuinely upset, but also worried about a contract cancellation from Hormel. 1 million loan at stake.

• Historical background on the industrialization of hog farms in the US:

• we protected small farms from corporate vertical monopolies, but some of the small farms adopted the same strategy. Also, corporate producers found ways around the laws. Note historical reference to the Meat Trust.

• North Carolina example of industrial growth. Containment breeches in 1999. Corporations sue for restraint of trade and make deals with states. Many small farms sold out, others took contracts. Perverse effects from the agreements: motivated fast investment in light of the expiration dates of the agreement.

• 2002 Hormel gets permission to increase kill floor line speed. 9,000 to 10,500 /day. Note the standardization process. Single breeds with predictable fat ratios. Walmart demands identical pork shops, so you need identical pigs. Read list of chemicals and measure farmers take to earn the “red box” premium (107).

• How do you process 7.7 million hogs a year! With supply chain precision: 175 trailers x 170 hog x 260 days.

• Back to Lynn Becker

• meet the Harvard MBA, Weihs who figures out the profitability of a “farrow to wean” operation. NPPII in North Carolina. Pigs “treated like royalty”. “We are a factory. You wouldn’t want your car not to be made in a factory”.
• But then you learn that the model he developed was very vulnerable to price fluctuations. He sells his interest and moves on!
• rumors of bankruptcy at NPPII, decline in “husbandry”, worker terminated and blows the whistle. Parallel to the story at LB Pork operation.
• Mistreatment of animals as an effect of industrial scale and volatility.

Slaughter vs. Hyperslaughter

• A few slides from some research on industrial slaughter. I will present this power point in class.