Righteous Porkchop

Nicolette Hahn Niman

• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780061942976
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política agrícola pública

" Righteous Porkchop is a searing, and utterly convincing, indictment of modern meat production. The book also brims with hope and charts a practical (and even beautiful) path out of the jungle."
—Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food

"[A] necessary book—part memoir, part exposé…its reasoned case for healthy and humane farming practices has the sweet savor of truth."
— O The Oprah Magazine

A crusading environmental activist, vegetarian, and lawyer who has worked with Robert Kennedy, Jr. on environment issues, Nicolette Hahn Niman blows the lid off the shocking practices in the pork, meat, and poultry industries in Righteous Porkchop, a Fast Food Nation for the hog trade. Subtitled, "Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond the Factory Farm, " Righteous Porkchop is at once an eye-opening grand tour of Hahn Niman's battles with the industrial farming conglomerates, a guide to avoiding unhealthy meats, and a very personal story of one woman's reawakening.

CHAPTER ONE

My Crash Course in Modern Meat

A NEW ASSIGNMENT

There I was, driving through sheets of relentless rain, straining to get a good view of the road in front of me. The year was 2000 and I was heading east on I-80 toward my new job in New York City, anxiously anticipating what lay ahead. As I made the trip from Michigan, I thought about all I’d given up. I’d just quit my job, sold my house, given away most of my possessions, and crammed the rest—my least expendable belongings—into my aging Volkswagen Golf. I had the overwhelming sense that this new beginning would be a turning point in my life. A few days later I would start as the senior attorney for the environmental group, Waterkeeper, headed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

After some long hours on the road, I finally reached New York and collapsed on a friend’s sofa. Two days later, my first day on the new job, I settled into a small, austere office at the Pace University Law School, where Waterkeeper was housed, and awaited direction. These initial weeks on the job turned out to be atypical in both the tasks I was given and the hours I worked. Bobby (as everyone calls him) threw a hodgepodge of requests at me, relating to everything from employment issues, to air pollution, to the organization’s tax status. These were tests, I suspected, yet none of the work seemed particularly pressing. Diligently but dispassionately, I plodded along as a legal factotum in a regular rhythm of nine to five.

That all changed one Saturday afternoon when I got a call from Bobby (for whom a mere wisp of a line separates on-and off-duty). “Nicolette, I want you to take charge of our hog campaign,” he barked in a way that sounded half command, half request. “You’ll have a lot of autonomy and responsibility,” he continued, “but it’s also going to be a lot of hard work.” At that moment, there was really no “hog campaign” to speak of. It was little more than Bobby’s notion that he wanted to sue hog farming operations for contaminating rivers with their manure and that he wanted it to be part of a larger national crusade against industrialized animal operations that caused pollution.

The responsibility and autonomy were certainly appealing, but I knew almost nothing about hog farming and it struck me as, well, an immersion in poop. It was not exactly the glamorous job I’d envisioned when abandoning everything for New York. “Uh—I’m not sure I want to work full-time on manure,” I ventured.

There was another reason for my reticence. I’d sought this job with the idea of dedicating myself to environmental causes dear to my heart, yet livestock farming didn’t hold much interest for me. Just after my freshman year of college, a tangle of vaguely informed concerns about the environment, health, and animals had inspired me to quit meat. However, since I wasn’t much of a proselytizing vegetarian, I’d largely ignored the dark details lately emerging about the meat industry. Frankly, I found those stories so depressing I intentionally avoided them. (Anyway, why did I need to read that stuff—wasn’t I doing my part by abstaining from meat?)

Hearing my hesitation, Bobby responded that before giving my answer, I should see for myself what this was really about. “Just go to Missouri and meet the people who’ve been asking for our help. Then you can decide.”

A STEAMROLLED COMMUNITY

As Bobby is not a person easily gainsaid, a few days later I found myself stepping off a plane in Kansas City. My ultimate destination was a Missouri town three hours to the northeast that had become densely populated by the hog operations of the large agribusiness corporation, Premium Standard Farms (PSF). Two farmers, a lawyer, and an environmental advocate would be my guides. They met me at the airport terminal exit in a white rental van.

From our phone conversations, I already knew that Scott Dye, a Sierra Club employee in the group, was a straight-talking, salty-tongued fountain of knowledge. With his grizzled beard, booming voice, red plaid shirt, and baseball cap, he struck me as more lumberjack than tree hugger. Scott gave my hand a firm shake then introduced me to the others.

From the introductions I learned that all but one in the group came from farming families. That fact stood out to me because I had already encountered claims from agribusiness that complaints about industrial animal operations are made only by misguided “displaced city-dwellers” who simply don’t understand agriculture. It seemed to be a classic agribusiness response to any criticism.

As we drove north, I heard facts and stories about the people who’d been raising crops and animals in the area for generations, long before big agribusiness moved in. Seated next to me was one of them: Terry Spence, a second-generation farmer with a Red Angus cattle herd. He seemed a modest, soft spoken man. But I soon detected a will of iron underneath as he described the company’s inauspicious arrival in their town a decade earlier.

At the time, Terry was serving on the local township board. When he and his fellow board members heard that PSF planned to move to their community after being blacklisted in neighboring Iowa, they leapt into action. The board drafted land use ordinances that would prohibit animal operations from causing pollution and odor, laws by which traditional farmers could easily abide.

The company responded by making a beeline to the state capitol to flex its political muscle. The day after the township adopted its anti-pollution ordinance, the state approved PSF’s permits, effectively overriding the local laws. The legislature even passed a law that explicitly exempted Terry’s county from the protection of a decades-old state statute that makes farming by out-of-state corporations illegal. Everything coming out of the capitol appeared hand-tailored for the company to seamlessly set up its facilities in Terry’s township.

PSF announced plans to erect ninety-six buildings that would hold more than one-hundred thousand hogs within a one-mile radius of more than twenty family homes. The rise of visible, vocal community opposition did little to slow the commencement of construction.

For good measure, PSF sued the township and its board, apparently hoping to intimidate them into repealing their ordinances. But the tiny community stood fast. “The company underestimated how much pride we had in our way of life, and how determined we were to protect it,” Terry wistfully recounted. When PSF won the case, the township appealed the decision all they way to the Missouri Supreme Court. Still, it got no relief. The state’s highest court ruled that the board was powerless to regulate local agricultural buildings and manure storage systems. The battle to protect Terry’s hometown, begun almost ten years before I met him and still raging, clearly required remarkable resilience and tenacity.

Terry’s tale was jarring to me both as a lawyer and a former city council member. Local governments in the United States have always held firm control over local land use, under a principle called “home rule.” The Missouri courts and legislature were essentially abandoning a centuries-old system of self-governance.

Sitting in the van chatting with Terry, Scott, and the others, I was drawn into their saga and feeling entirely comfortable. Then we stopped for lunch. I knew that with their rural farming backgrounds, several of my companions would have been exposed to years of meat industry propaganda that equated vegetarians with bomb-throwing radicals plotting to overthrow the American way of life. I discretely ordered an egg salad sandwich. When it seemed to pass unnoticed, I breathed a small sigh of relief.

Across the lunch table from me was the lawyer in the group, Charlie Speer, an amiable, scholarly looking man with silver rimmed glasses and receding gray hair. Charlie explained that he’d been representing Terry and several neighbors against PSF in a lawsuit over water pollution and odor. They’d had a tough row to hoe because as part of its unstinting generosity toward PSF, the state legislature had adopted a law making it almost impossible to sue hog facilities for nuisance.

I was stunned. In law school I’d been taught that hundreds of years of American and English case law hold that no person can use his property in a way that causes a nuisance for his neighbors. This age-old precedent was apparently being entirely ignored. “They call the nuisance exception the ‘Right to Farm’ law, but it’s got nothing to do with real farmers,” said Charlie, shaking his head. “Let’s just call that what it is—a bunch of horseshit,” interjected Scott in hearty agreement. “I mean, my clients are all farmers,” Charlie continued, “and they’re the ones hurt by the law. It’s really to protect a few big companies, like PSF. The legislature is just giving them a free pass.” The genuine anger coloring Charlie’s cheeks and voice, I suspected, was what kept him motivated in spite of what seemed very unpromising odds.

FACTORIES, NOT FARMS

When we reached Putnam County, Scott drove straight to an enclave of large windowless metal warehouses. “There are seventy-two of ‘em at this point,” Scott narrated unhappily. I could picture furniture or salt mounds stored in the barren structures, but not living creatures. More than a thousand pigs were crowded into each building, where they’d spend every day in pens with concrete floors, my guides explained.

The floors were slatted so the pig manure and urine would collect in containments below the buildings. By standing and lying in their own excrement, pigs push it through the slats with their hooves and bodies. As with toilets, water is added to the waste for ease of transport. This liquefied manure then flows out to large, open-air storage ponds. When the ponds reach capacity, the waste is pumped into giant wagons that spread it onto surrounding farm land. This elaborate mechanized waste handling system, my guides pointed out, makes it possible to keep huge numbers of animals in buildings, with very few people looking after them.

Perusing the landscape, I spotted numerous giant ponds beyond the buildings, roughly the size and shape of football fields. “They call those ‘lagoons,’” Scott said with a skeptical snort. It did seem an odd word for a murky brown manure hole bordered with weeds and scum. Until that moment, I’d always pictured a “lagoon” as a crystal clear azure tropical pool surrounded by sandy white beaches.

My brow furrowed as I studied the metal sheds and absorbed the description of the grim drama unfolding inside, shielded from our view. Aside from a couple of petting zoos, the only pigs I’d ever seen in the flesh were wild boars rooting and roaming the forests of Germany. It was hard to imagine their descendants surviving in lifeless buildings like these. “You mean the animals never go outside?” I questioned tentatively. “Never,” Scott called over his shoulder from the driver’s seat. “They’re born in confinement and they’re there until they take ’em to slaughter.” “So, I guess it’s sort of like living in a barn,” I reasoned. “No, it’s not like a barn,” Scott patiently explained to the naïve city dweller. “You see, Premium Standard Farms never even gives them any straw to lie on. That would be like throwing a handful of straw in your toilet—it would gum up their fancy sewer system.” Just talking about it seemed to exasperate Scott. “Listen—these aren’t farms. They’re factories.”

The insides of confinement buildings were organized as two rows of crowded pens, explained Scott. A pig’s opportunity for movement was minimal; exercise was nonexistent. Eating was the sole activity. Night and day, the animals languished with nothing to do but stand and lie in their dirty pens. The sows, females used for breeding, had it the worst. They were continually contained in individual metal cages so narrow they could not even turn around. This was all starting to sound like a pig prison, and it was getting me depressed.

As our van rolled slowly past row after row of gray pig barracks, my eyes scanned the landscapes, which felt eerily devoid of life. I was being told that tens of thousands of pigs were just yards away, yet not a single animal or person was anywhere in sight. Everything about the place felt horribly wrong.

It began dawning on me then that perhaps divorcing animals from nature is exactly the point of the industrial approach. By taking animals off the land and placing them in totally artificial settings, the operations sever themselves from sunlight, seasons, weather, and even the need for skilled people with an understanding of animals. When I was growing up, farmers were the folks my father had always chatted with about local rainfall, heat, and wind. But none of that mattered here. Everything was being done inside buildings and by machines, much of it entirely automated. Operators could spend more time staring at their gauges and spreadsheets than with the animals in their charge. I suspected they did. This did not even remotely resemble my idea of “farming.”

After cruising the area for about twenty minutes, Scott pulled the van off to the shoulder. He’d been running the air conditioner on the re-circulate mode and now felt that I should experience what it was really like outside. “Let’s get out and take a whiff,” he suggested sardonically while shutting off the motor. Our group piled out at the roadside into a sticky mid-afternoon sun. Heat and odor instantly pressed in on me from all sides. A mildly nauseating smell of rotten eggs enveloped us. “Hmm. Hydrogen sulfide,” I speculated. “Yup. Hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, and plenty of it,” Scott confirmed with a nod.

Industrial animal operations, especially hog facilities, are notorious for foul odors. I’d been reading and hearing that the stench could be unbearably oppressive. But it wasn’t as strong as I’d anticipated, especially considering we were quite close to a few of the buildings. This was unpleasant, but not intolerable. Perhaps reading my thoughts, Charlie remarked, “The smell gets a lot worse than this. A lot worse, depending on the temperature, humidity…wind. Actually, the most frustrating part for neighbors is that they just never know when it’s going to get really bad.”

Standing by the roadside I could now hear the hog operations, too. The air was vibrating with a whirring sound, reminiscent of an airplane revving its engines for takeoff. Pointing to a huge fan at the end of one of the buildings, Scott informed me I was hearing the ventilation systems. “The fans have to run 24/7 because of the fumes inside.” If the ventilators stop working, even for a few minutes, he explained, tragedy strikes. “Every year we hear about incidents in the area where power goes out for a while and all the pigs suffocate. It doesn’t take but a few hours.” It occurred to me that such toxic air couldn’t be good for the people working there, either, even when the fans were working properly. I’d never imagined that a “farm” could be such a hazardous place for man and beast.

We all climbed back into the van and Scott pointed it toward the farm where he grew up, less than two miles from the spot where we’d been standing. On the way, Scott explained that since his father’s death a tenant farmer cultivated his family’s crop land. His mother was still living in the family home. We pulled up the long gravel driveway of a white 1930s clapboard farmhouse with an empty clothesline out back. A row of PSF’s metal buildings glimmered ominously in the distance.

A white-haired woman warmly greeted us at the door, inviting us all in and asking if we’d care for some cold lemonade. I gladly accepted the offer as we took seats in the living room. Mrs. Dye served us each our drinks then sat down. “Mom, tell Nicolette what’s it’s been like livin’ here since PSF came to town,” Scott gently prodded. His mother nodded and slowly began talking. “Well, it’s just made it hard to live here,” she began.

She told me how she now struggled to enjoy living in her home, where she’d raised her children and passed most of her life. Mrs. Dye suffered under the constant uncertainty of when PSF’s stench would next invade her yard and house. Some days it even affected her breathing. “I don’t care to hang my laundry outside anymore,” she told us with a sigh, “because when I bring it in a lot of times it smells like hog manure.” Because nighttime was when the fumes were strongest, even a good sleep was elusive.

As we said goodbye to Mrs. Dye, I watched Scott’s hulking body wrap his frail mother in a bear hug. Now I knew why Scott was so dedicated to fighting hog factories—he’s a good son.

As we drove away, the other farmer in our group piped up. For him and his family, too, he said, the nasty smell was the worst part. Rolf Christen, an organic crop, cattle, and free-range chicken farmer originally from Switzerland, had moved to Missouri with his wife almost two decades earlier to start a diversified family farm. About ten years after they bought their land, the PSF operations set up shop. Like Terry, he’d spent the years since tangling with the company. What was most upsetting, he said, was how it disrupted the lives of his family members. Sometimes he and his wife and children would wake up in the middle of the night as a putrid smell rolled into their house like a dense fog. “We rush around closing all the windows but it doesn’t really do much to keep out the odor,” he recounted with dismay.

Our final stop was along a stream that snaked through the PSF operations. Terry was part of the local citizens group, Missouri Stream Team 714, that monitored water quality. “For almost ten years, our team took water samples here every month,” Terry explained, “and the nitrate levels just kept going up and up.” I already knew that the nitrates contained in manure are the main water pollution problem from industrialized livestock operations. Every gardener is familiar with nitrogen’s value in making plants grow. But the same qualities that make it good fertilizer render it hazardous to aquatic plants and animals. When too much nitrogen gets into the water, algae bloom out of control, depleting all the oxygen and causing just about everything else to die (a condition called “hypoxia”).

Terry and fellow team members had dutifully made the government and PSF aware of their sampling results. They then spent years trying to get them to respond to the rising nitrate levels. The state did essentially nothing. The company, however, did take some action, although not to stop the pollution. “The most ridiculous thing is that the only thing PSF did in response was to put that up,” he bitterly complained as he pointed to a chain-link fenc...