An Ethical Look at the Way Pork is Being Produced
By J.B.Nelson
I believe that something is ethically wrong with the new trend in pork production. It is creating excess waste, degrading the value of the land it utilizes, as well as polluting water and air miles away from its plant locations, causing unjust costs to the public and environment.
The big problem is that the new method of producing pork in factory rather than farm settings creates a buildup of waste material. Each pig produces two to four times as much fecal matter as a person, and the factory setting allows this waste to seep into rivers, lakes, and oceans – killing wildlife and creating pollution (Foer 13). On the other hand, an appropriate number of animals raised through traditional farming methods allow manure to go back into the soil as fertilizer for the crops that will become the pigs’ feed (Foer 11). In addition the factory farms have caused an estimated $26 billion dollars in degradation to American land (Foer 12).
Pork companies, lead by the Smithfield company which has had sales of $12 billion in 2007 (Foer 14), would say that there is not a problem with the way they produce pork, because it is what people want. The entire food industry is ultimately driven and determined by the decisions people make about what to eat and unless we make new choices the industry will have no reason to stop the growing trend away from traditional farming into the mass-production which has been encouraged by American’s decision to eat more meat than any other culture in history, while paying historically little for it (Foer 14). The problem with this argument is that just because people like to eat pork, they do not necessarily support companies like Smithfield. With factory farms now producing 95% of America’s pork, it is entirely possible that the average citizen who eats pork thinks there is something unjust about how “Big pork” operates (Foer 8).
I think the most unjust of the costs are being born by those who have chosen not to eat meat, but still have to live with pollution and sickness. It is the worst cost because it is not born only by those that demand (willingly or ignorantly) to eat the more plentiful and cheaper meats that come from this new “farming” system that also causes so many problems. The problems include creating football field sized waste lagoons that are considered normal and legal while they are known to cause runoff that creeps into waterways, poisonous gases like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide which can create fecal mists of swirling asses capable of causing sever neurological damage and problems such as persistent nosebleeds, earaches, chronic diarrhea, asthma, and burning lungs (Foer 14). And even if you think these claims are exaggerated (which I believe they are not), it goes to show that our nation may have become what Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist, feared: A nation whose model of agriculture produces cheap bacon while risking the health of all of us.
The reason why this problem persists is because there is demand for what only factory farms can produce, and that demand consists of two parts – large quantities and low prices. The reason why factory farms can produce so much more pork is because it is a well oiled machine where just about everything – feed, water, lighting, heating, ventilation, even slaughter – is automated, and automation is not hampered by regulations or laws like the natural growth rate of a pig, or things like how and where they operate.
For corporations like Smithfield, it is a cost-benefit analysis: Paying fines for polluting is cheaper than giving up the entire factory farm system. In past transgressions Smithfield was fined for $12.6 million while they now make that amount every 10 hours (Foer 15).
The reasons that factory farm pork is so inexpensive is because the factory farms allow ranchers to make sickly animals highly profitable through the use of antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, and highly controlled confinement (Foer 4) so that a new factory farm can conceivably hold six thousands hogs at one time. Overcrowding is deliberate because it pays by stopping the animals from moving so they burn fewer calories and get fatter on less feed (Foer 19). The most immoral practice that places like Smithfield use to reduce costs is to pass those costs onto the public by not paying to stop its own pollution, or to contain the illnesses it causes, because they would not be able to produce the cheap meat they do if they had to pay to protect the environment and human health (Foer 15).
Some plausible and potentially undermining objections to my argument could come from ethical philosophers such as Milton Friedman, Albert Carr, Adam Smith, and Robert Nozick. It could be argued from Friedman’s perspective that corporations need only maximize profit, and that “there are no values, no “social” responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals” (Friedman 38). Or perhaps the argument would come from Carr’s view that business is a game and that“no one should think any worse of the game of business because its standards of right and wrong differ from the prevailing traditions of morality in our society” (Carr 139). A third argument comes from how Smith would claim that the factory farm is just a logical progression of the assembly lines that improves all types of businesses where “the greatest improvement in the productive power of labor ... seems to have been the effects of the division of labor” (Smith 163). Finally it could be argued the wealth accumulated by the Smithfield’s of the world came about by free choice, thus being justified under Nozick’s transfer of holdings theory (Nozick 233).
In order to [provide] effective counters to these objections, we must dig deeper into the beliefs of the stated philosophers to find how they would truly feel about the position presented by corporations like Smithfield who in 1997 was penalized for seven thousand violations of the Clean Water Act – about twenty violations a day, for illegally dumping waste and then falsifying and destroying records to cover up their activities (Foer 15), or who commit their pigs to horribly stressful lives when “stress” seems to negatively affect taste. Test shows that stressed animals produce more acid, which actually works to break down the animals’ muscles in the same way acid in our stomachs breaks down meat. In 1992 acid wasted meat was found in 10% of pigs – costing $69 million. In 2002 the number was 15% (Foer 5). The truth is that Friedman believes it is only moral when a corporation profits while following the letter of the law and “using its resources and engaging in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game” (Friedman 39). As for arguments for Carr, it turns out he believes that integrity and decency is how you win in the long run, saying “the better [their] reputation for integrity, honesty, and decency, the better [their] chances of victory will be in the long run” (Carr 141). Now looking at Smith we see that he believes an improvement is made only if the product is of greater value (Smith 167), which is not the case where traditional farms always beat factory farms in taste tests (Foer 10). And how even if it looks like free choice, it is not justified under Nozick’s transfer of holdings theory if farmers can only compete by selling through factory farms thus “...forcibly excluding others from competing in exchanges. None of these are permissible modes of transition from one situation to another” (Nozick 234).
Finally, I believe that the philosopher John Locke would support the idea that there is injustice because in their normal processes, factory farms will cause around 7-15% of sows and 9-15% of piglets to die so they do not become drains on factory resources (Foer 19). Locke believes that “as much as anyone can make use of any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labor fix a property in; whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others” (Locke 159), in this case referring to the pigs that factory farms allow to “spoil.”
In conclusion I would like to say that while I believe the people who are responsible for these injustices are the pork companies that went so far as to break the law for profits, they are not the ones who can be expected to change their behavior in our capitalist society. As always, the power to change America lies with its citizens. If we ever want to stop the injustices being perpetrated by Smithfield and other factory farms we need to participate in the change by assuming the greater cost of meat raised in healthier settings and by voting to stop abuses – voting for real regulation of factory farms, voting for ballot initiatives, and voting for politicians who will work to reign in these corporations.