Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
away from the farm, and at night I had to close the windows to sleep. The Americans have made our vil-
lage a hotbed of infection.” 81
The swine flu that hit Romania in 2007 was also a source of embarrassment. Officials had asked Smith-
field to stop breeding pigs and transferring them from one farm to another, but Smithfield paid no attention.
Then it was discovered that of the thirty-three factory farms in the country at the time, eleven were never
authorized by sanitation authorities and had to be closed down. When veterinary doctors attempted to in-
spect the operations, guards with bulldogs refused to let them in. 82 Csaba Daroczi, assistant director at the
Timisoara Hygiene and Veterinary Authority, explained: “Smithfield proposed that we sign an agreement
that obliged us to warn them three days before each inspection. These people have never known how to
communicate with the public authorities.” 83
Smithfield's communication with the public is not much better. Its response to the plague that ultimately
halted the country's pork exports to the European Union (EU) was arrogant at best. “We have nothing to
say to the press; the swine plague is under control; journalists can just publish our communiqués,” said the
director of Smithfield's Timisoara operation, after receiving orders from corporate headquarters to refuse
all contact with journalists. 84
Witowska-Ritter says of Smithfield's operations in Poland that when a TV reporter went undercover
and filmed unhygienic practices, such as sending old meat back to stores with new expiration dates and
washing moldy meats to make them look fresh, they just blamed it on “Polish sloppiness.” She is continu-
ing her battle against Smithfield and working to reform agriculture in the EU, because Eastern Europe is
being exploited in a way that would never be allowed in Western Europe.
As could be expected, as in the United States, the influx of corporate agriculture has crippled local com-
munities and markets. Smithfield's expansion into Eastern Europe resulted in an overproduction of pork,
to the point that the prices offered for meat were below the cost of production for independent hog farmers.
The outcome has been the loss of the traditional farms that have been the hallmark of these countries.
Iowa hog farmer Larry Ginter, a longtime ICCI member and opponent of factory farms, made the con-
nection between the plight of American farmers and the struggles of farmers in other countries when he
testified at the Iowa hearing on revising the GIPSA regulations. He noted: “Labor, family farms, democrat-
ic rights are in a pitched battle against the dictatorship of capital. We've got to understand that this is an
international struggle. Those Mexican workers coming up here are family farmers. Those Sudanese work-
ers in the packing plants are family farmers and workers being driven off by the big dictatorship of capital.
We have to understand that we are not alone in America.” Urging his fellow farmers to action, Ginter con-
cluded, “Nothing can happen on the farms unless farmers turn the wheel and plant the seed.”
Smithfield shows no sign of slowing down its destruction anytime soon. Nor does it appear that the ti-
tans of meat have given up on even further consolidation. During the summer of 2010, Smithfield's stock
rose 10 percent because of rumors that the giant Brazilian beef and pork meatpacker JBS/Swift was inter-
ested in buying the company. But, fortunately, around the country a large cadre of factory farm fighters like
Ginter are working to protect their communities and to change federal farm policy.
Kendra Kimbirauskas, who serves as president of the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP),
notes, “In our work, we have learned that once people are educated about the terrible effects of factory
farms, many of them become passionate about changing the system.” SRAP is a national organization
working with a network of community groups around the United States to fight factory farms and regener-
ate the critical infrastructure necessary to restore local food systems that are based on family-scale agricul-
ture. Kimbirauskas goes on to say: “In this movement, there are many necessary approaches to regenerate
our food system. SRAP is not just working to build a vast activist network that reaches into every state, but
also to provide the on-the-ground tools that are vital in supporting the growth of a nation of localized food
economies.”
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