Just off Route 44, surrounded by the rolling grassland of Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, 24 huge metal barns sparkle in the afternoon sunlight. They are some of modern animal agriculture’s most controversial inventions: buildings designed to hold upwards of 2,000 hogs, in an automated, temperature-controlled environment. Even though nearly 50,000 pigs live just inside these newly erected structures, not a sound is heard and not a soul is in sight.
In 1998, the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Council signed a contract allowing Sun Prairie, a partner of Bell Farms, to build what was projected to be one of the world’s largest hog operations on tribal trust land. Bell Farms, one of the 50 largest pork producers in the United States, is based in Wahpeton, North Dakota. Its operation was planned to include a total of 13 sites, with 24 buildings at each site. That’s more than 620,000 hogs — almost as many pigs as there are people in the entire state of South Dakota — on less than 1200 acres of land.
Waste treatment involves use of a flush system to remove waste from the buildings, anaerobic digesters, air-emissions systems — and clay-lined evaporation ponds: large, outdoor pools of waste. Since individual hogs produce 2-3 times the waste individual people produce, the Rosebud operations would produce more waste than all the people in North Dakota and South Dakota combined.
Many residents of Rosebud Reservation claim that the tribal council did not obtain the consent of the people before signing the contract. This has sparked much debate over the past four years, splitting the tribe in a contentious battle over whether or not the hog factory should stay on sacred land or be forced, through costly and risky litigation, to leave.
Eva Iyotte, from White River, South Dakota, was in a Lakota Studies history class at Sinte Gleska University in Mission, S.D., when she first heard about the Bell Farms hog factory. "The teacher was talking about the future of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and he mentioned the large pork facility that would bring jobs and opportunity for the people. I was shocked. When we had a break, I went to the business department and told Oleta."
Iyotte and fellow student Oleta Mednansky were the first residents and tribal members to begin organizing grassroots opposition to the hog operation. They banded together to form an organization called Concerned Rosebud Area Citizens, Inc. and began legal proceedings to shut down the operation and construction of the farm. "Confinement is not good for anyone," says Mednansky, "and definitely not the animals, because they don’t understand. It’s not their way of life, and it’s not our way of life, either."
Rosalie Little Thunder from Rapid City, South Dakota, is Chairperson of the Board of Seventh Generation Fund and South Dakota Peace and Justice Center. She grew up on Rosebud Reservation and many of her relatives still live there. Her reasons for opposing the pig farm are many. "Pigs are not native to this land," she says, "They came from Europe, and with them came disease and epidemics. In these big confinement barns the pigs are not maintained in any kind of natural, free-range manner. In fact, there is nothing natural about the way they live all crowded together; it is inhumane."
She continues, "Their waste pollutes the air, the water, and the land. When completed, the farm will use a tremendous amount of water [Little Thunder estimates 1.6 million gallons daily. Rich Bell’s numbers put the total at about 600,000 gallons a day]. The long-term effect is the exhaustion of the earth’s non-renewable resources. There is clearly a lack of vision in how future generations will survive."
All three women believe that an industrial hog facility will disrupt the circle of relatedness that is so much a part of their Lakota culture. "If you are traditional," says Mednansky, "you care about the land, the water, the air, the animals, everything around you, because we are all here together. We hold an inherent belief that all things are related and we have to take care of each other."
Iyotte explains further. "The plants, the animals — the four-legged and the two-legged — are all related. We have sacred above and we have sacred below. We get up in the morning and face East to greet the sun. We take a drink of water and say our prayers ending with Mitakuye Oya’sin which means‘We are all related’ and that keeps us strong throughout the day."
Why Indian Land?
Factory-style pork production has become increasingly controversial nationwide. Pollution of U.S. waters and land due to hog waste run-off and the airborne diseases that accompany intensive confined animal feeding operations is a growing concern of people who live in Iowa, North Carolina, Minnesota, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Texas, Illinois, Missouri, and Pennsylvania, among others. As evidenced by newspaper headlines across the country, the list of states keeps growing.
According to Pattrice Le-Muire Jones, coordinator for Global Hunger Alliance in Princess Anne, Maryland, the U.S. and European animal agriculture industry is facing a growing number of environmental and animal welfare regulations. In response, she says, "these corporations are actively planning to relocate and expand their operations in low-income nations, where they hope to be far from the prying eyes of environmental, labor and animal welfare activists." The largest corporations have already set up shop in Poland, Mexico, Brazil, and the Canadian province of Ontario.
There are permit requirements in South Dakota that could prevent or limit environmental pollution. But, because the Bell Farms facility on Rosebud Reservation is on tribal trust land, these laws do not apply, just as federal water pollution laws do not apply, either.
Could this be why Bell Farms picked Indian Country on which to expand their share of the pork market? "In my opinion, their purpose was to get away from the environmental laws that would govern them elsewhere," says Eric Nixon, a Rosebud Tribal Council member who opposes the hog farm. Little Thunder agrees, " I believe they came because they see a labor pool and a haven from environmental regulations. There are resources here that they can take advantage of."
The Lure of Jobs
In August 1998, an Environmental Assessment prepared on behalf of the corporation stated that Bell Farms’ purpose for coming to Rosebud was "to provide the opportunity for economic prosperity to the area and tribal members."
Several key members of the community, such as former Rosebud Tribal Council president Norman Wilson, community elders and council members, felt that the agreement between Bell Farms and the tribe would bring much needed jobs to the reservation, where unemployment seldom dips below 60 percent.
But experts and university researchers suggest that these kinds of jobs can have a negative impact on the workers and their communities. Gail Eisnitz, chief investigator for Humane Farming Association (the organization that has financed the legal struggle), has been studying the environmental and social impacts of industrial animal agriculture facilities across the United States for nearly a decade. Her research reveals that many of the tasks workers are expected to perform are dehumanizing. "They are not allowed to care for dying animals and have to kill them in brutal ways," she says.
A report for the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development and the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture indicates that the majority of jobs available at an industrial hog factory are entry-level, minimum wage positions that require few previous skills and offer little room for job growth. In a 1998 paper presented at the 7th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management in Columbia, Missouri, authors A.M. Kleiner and D.H. Constance note, "it is easier to find someone who used to work for [an industrial hog factory] than to find one who does now."
However, the effect that a modern pork production facility can have on local labor forces goes beyond employment rates. According to Eisnitz, health hazards associated with working in confined animal feeding operations are high and respiratory and eye infections, as well as vomiting, are common. Since 1995, academic researchers have noticed higher rates of clinical depression and other psychological disorders among workers and neighbors of industrial livestock operations.
Eric Nixon used to work at a meat packing plant and his own personal experience has bearing on how he feels about the kind of work Bell Farms offers the community. "One of the main reasons I don’t like factory farms is I don’t like to see the pigs all huddled up. It’s improper. For lack of better words, it’s evil. I don’t know how a tribal member, given the cultural values that they have, can stand to do something like that. We’re not supposed to treat animals like that. These are our relatives. Everything has life."
The First Hogs
Nearly 500 years ago, in 1539, the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto landed in Florida with just 13 pigs to feed himself and his army of 600 soldiers. Within a year, he had 500 swine. The effect of these first hogs setting foot on North American land was devastating.
According to the March 2002 The Atlantic Monthly article, titled, "1491" by Charles C. Mann, "the pigs...multiplied rapidly and were able to transmit their diseases to wildlife in the surrounding forest." Because Indians did not live in close quarters with animals, and anyway, the diseases were new to the New World, "over time, hundreds of thousands of Indians became ill and died.
"Swine alone can disseminate anthrax," writes Mann, "brucellosis, leptospirosis, taeniasis, trichinosis, and tuberculosis. Pigs breed exuberantly and can transmit diseases to deer and turkeys. Only a few ... would have had to wander off to infect the forest."
Understanding the relationship between disease and hog confinement is an important part of the puzzle in assessing whether an industrial hog facility will harm a community more than it will benefit it. Researchers and scientists have been studying the connections for years. One focus of inquiry has been the industry’s heavy use of antibiotics. The bottom line is that very few farmed animals would survive living under these stressful, disease-promoting conditions were it not for the use of antibiotics. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that 70 percent of all the antibiotics produced annually in the United States ends up in the feed and water of factory-raised animals.
According to researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, this widespread use of antibiotics may be shortening the length of time these drugs are useful in treating human disease. A 2001 study by Dr. Rustam I. Aminov of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is also cause for concern. The investigators found that antibiotic-resistant bacteria had seeped into underlying groundwater downstream of hog waste "lagoons." These lagoons, or pits, hold massive amounts of waste from thousands of antibiotic-treated pigs. Other, more recent, data on antibiotic-resistant bacteria from hog facilities comes from Dr. James A. Zahn, a microbiologist with the USDA’s Agriculture Research Service. His research reveals the transfer of antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria into the air surrounding hog production facilities.
Little Thunder fears this news will have serious ramifications in Indian Country. "Fifty percent of the adults are stricken with diabetes and that makes them more susceptible to contagious diseases," she says. "We also have high cancer rates. We’re sitting here on the reservation and upstream and upwind is a huge hog factory with a waste management system that hasn’t always worked properly and with hogs being pumped full of antibiotics and hormones. It’s a health disaster waiting to happen given the flu epidemics and pandemics that have originated from hog farms. In fact," she says, "there already is documented evidence of pollution to the groundwater."
Fighting Back
Four organizations — Concerned Rosebud Area Citizens, Humane Farming Association, South Dakota Peace and Justice Center, and Prairie Hills Audubon Society — have been united in litigation against Bell Farms since the first hog barn was built on Lakota land. Now, four years later, the coalition may be entering the final round of legal battles. On April 5, 2002, a U.S. federal appeals court overturned a series of injunctions Bell Farms had won in an effort to keep the project moving forward. As a result, Bell Farms’s contract with the Rosebud tribe is now invalid, according to James Doherty, lawyer to the environmental groups.
What will happen next is uncertain, but opposition to industrial hog facilities on and off the reservation is gaining momentum. In April, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of Waterkeeper Alliance spoke for one hour to a packed room of more than 1000 small farmers, animal welfare activists, and environmentalists on the issue of hog farm corruption and pollution at a conference in Clear Lake, Iowa. His organization is in litigation with the worlds’ largest hog producer: Smithfield Foods of Smithfield, Virginia.
Kennedy concluded his remarks by stating that the Lakota people "are now being abused in their own land by Bell Farms. It is one of the worst curses in their history that a corporate hog farm is now operating on their reservation land." He reminded his audience of their proverb, which says,‘we didn’t inherit this planet from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.’"
In the last two decades, residents of Rosebud Reservation have succeeded in fighting off the construction of a chicken factory, a dumpsite for New Jersey garbage, and a nuclear waste storage site. Now the hog factory threatens their health, their culture, and their sovereignty. "We’re going to have to depend on a lot of people to help us with this thing. That’s the bottom line. That’s the strategy. A lot depends on educating our own people about this, giving them all the facts," says tribal council member Eric Nixon.
Tracy Basile is executive editor of Animal Welfare Trust, a nonprofit organization based in Mamaroneck, N.Y., concerned with public awareness on issues important to the welfare of animals. For more information visit www.animalwelfaretrust.org.
Illinois: Land of Stinkin’?
The banner shows a picture of Honest Abe with a clothespin on his nose. The words "Illinois: Land of Stinkin’ tower over Lincoln’s head. Karen Hudson, president of Elmwood-based Families Against Rural Messes (FARM) takes it with her practically everywhere she goes. Hudson and her co-horts have a flair for the dramatic and a knack for getting media attention. On May 8th, for example, the Chicago Tribune ran an article the grass-roots group initiated with the headline "Oink if You Smell Bad Legislation." But their message is anything but funny.
FARM is trying to get across the point that current laws in Illinois are woefully inadequate to protect family farmers, rural communities, water quality, air quality, the welfare of the animals, and property values against the ravages of corporate farm factories. Hudson ought to know. Seven years ago her new neighbors moved in — the largest dairy operation in the state — and down the road is a 7,000-head industrial pig facility.
Factory farms are growing like weeds across Illinois (and the rest of the nation), while the number of family farms continues to plummet. On Wall Street it’s called vertical integration; multi-million dollar corporations that control it all, from "semen to cellophane," as Hudson puts it. So, where does that leave Illinois’ small family farmers and their neighbors? Holding protest signs, getting on email list-serves, meeting around kitchen tables, talking to the press, attending public hearings — and angry, nonetheless.
In dozens of rural towns across the state, the people directly affected by industrial animal agriculture are outraged. So they do like Hudson did seven years ago; they organize into local groups. But that’s not good enough. Dr. R. Bruce St John, president of Illinois Stewardship Alliance, believes that all these groups must work together so they can have a greater statewide — and national — impact. "We’re trying to get people out of the local thought process and get them to realize how big and difficult this issue is," he says "because it’s not just in Illinois, it’s everywhere."
Even with seasoned activists like Hudson and St John at the helm, regulating the industry isn’t going to happen overnight. "If we are going to have any success here, in Illinois and other places, its because we’re stepping up and making use of public opinion, print and electronic media, and lawsuits," says St John. "We’ve got to get people to realize this is not a Mom-and-Pop-you-and-I-grew-up-on-a-family-farm operation," he says. "This is a factory and it needs to be regulated like any other factory in the United States."
For example, after 12 to 20 years in the business, an industrial hog facility usually shuts its doors and walks away. Who pays for the clean up? Right now in the state of Illinois, citizens’ tax dollars foot the bill. It cost one Iowa community $12 million to clean up the cesspools of animal waste that an agribusiness left behind. One of the regulations St John and Hudson would like to see in place is the creation of a statewide indemnity fund which would be financed not by taxpayer money, but by the corporations that pollute the land, the water, and the air in the first place.
Outspoken activists like Hudson and St John have a rough road ahead of them, but there is pothole repair just behind them. The most compelling reason for hope is that ignorance isn’t bliss. Most community-minded citizens — agribusiness CEO’s and investors aside — would vote yes for the referendum and similar legislation.
"What the industry hates about us is that we are educating the consumer," says Hudson. We are educating the neighbors. We are educating people in urban and rural areas about the hazards of industrial farming." Hudson is optimistic that a different truism — the one that says knowledge is power — will prove true. "I think the tides are starting to turn," he says. Let’s hope those tides are free from effluence.
— Tracy Basile
FARM, 309-742-8895, khudson@elmnet.net
Seven Ways Not to Buy Factory-Farmed Meat
1. Look for these brands: Niman Ranch, Maverick Ranch, or Gunthorp’s Pasture-ized Pork & Poultry. Each of these organizations sells only humanely-raised pork.
2. Ask for what you want. The more often retailers hear requests from their customers, the greater the chance that they will listen.
3. Go to the farmer’s market. The Green City Market on the Corner of Lasalle and Clark in Chicago carries Niman Ranch and Gunthorp’s. It’s open every Wednesday during the summer 10:00 am until 1:00 pm.
4. Buy direct from the farm. Christy Farms in Elmwood, Illinois (309-742-3003) raises pigs on a deep-bedded system. They are also producers for Niman Ranch. Also Gunthorp’s Pasture-ized Pork and Poultry in LaGrange, Indiana (219-367-2708) raises antibiotic-free animals on pasture.
5. While dining out in Chicago, patronize these restaurants: Frontera Grill, Blackbird, Charlie Trotters, Lakeview Supper Club, Campagnola (Evanston), and Lula. Buyers beware: ask before you order. Not all meat served by all these establishments is humanely produced.
6. Don’t eat meat. Discover tofu, tempeh, Yves Bologna, Faking’ Bacon, Boca Burgers, and Silk Chocolate Soymilk, to name a few delectable protein-rich edibles available in many supermarkets and health food stores.
7. Go vegan. The dairy, egg, and fish markets are also dominated by factory farming.
For a complete listing of food choices available in the Chicago area, contact Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT) at 773-525-4952.
—The Editors