Swine & Smithfield & Granjas Carroll >:(

[logovo]

From The Guardian.

The world's biggest pig meat producer, Virginia-based Smithfield, said it is co-operating with the Mexican authorities' attempts to locate the possible source of the outbreak and will submit samples from its herds at its Granjas Carroll subsidiary to the University of Mexico for tests.

As I understand it, the pig farms in the US are a lot larger than the ones in Mexico.

Smithfield, which is led by pork baron Joseph W Luter III, has previously been fined for environmental damage in the US. In October 2000 the supreme court upheld a $12.6m (£8.6m) fine levied by the US environmental protection agency which found that the company had violated its pollution permits in the Pagan River in Virginia which runs towards Chesapeake Bay. The company faced accusations that faecal and other bodily waste from slaughtered pigs had been dumped directly into the river since the 1970s.

Based on what I've been reading on factory pig farms, that fine was probably a tiny slap on the wrist.

Comments

[monanotlisa]

Based on what I've been reading on factory pig farms, that fine was probably a tiny slap on the wrist.

Indeed.

(Have you read Fast Food Nation?)

[logovo]

Oh yes. I've been reading about factory food production and it's all quite daunting. The thing that keeps coming back to my mind is how beef is produced and processed and how the food chain has gotten so big and intertwined that one small incident can have devastating effects.

[monanotlisa]

how the food chain has gotten so big and intertwined that one small incident can have devastating effects.

*nod* I remember the whole milk powder scandal in China, and how so many Germans were all, OH, THOSE POOR CHINESE BABIES!

And I thought, yes, sure, but: If you think you are safe here, in Europe, you got another thing coming. And presto; news about contaminated powder in Nestle Koala cookies and other processed foods started popping up.

It's not that I hate to be right - I love it, generally - it's that, as you say, the interconnection factor is one not often considered.

[logovo]

Exactly! And the whole thing about getting food into us for the cheapest price possible! Of course we're going to end up with ingredients that have not been carefully inspected. I don't know if it was in Fast Food Nation, but reading about how few inspectors there are for the amount of food produced was damn scary.

[bell]

Bleargh. I just hope that now it's come to public attention, it and other similar polluters will be made to face up to their responsibilities and pay for the damage they've done... at least, the damage that can be repaired with money.

[logovo]

There is so much money involved that I doubt anything short of a major disaster will have a lasting impact :(