You are what you eat. Nearly three-fourths of pigs in the United States are raised on large farms. A hog farm is a factory that raises thousands of pigs in buildings hundreds of feet long. These buildings are considered to be concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. The home of a hog waiting for slaughter is shared with 99 other hogs in a gated, concrete pen. There is up to 2,500 of these pens per barn, with as many as 20 barns to a factory. Pigs spend their entire lives in these buildings, depraved of sunlight and the freedom to roam. When the trucks come from the slaughterhouse to pick them up they must pull right up to the buildings, for the pigs will not herd onto the grass because they have never seen it before.

Hog farms need to be shut down for the welfare of the animals and the surrounding communities. These animals are suffering needlessly for the sake of profit, just because they are viewed as food and not as living, breathing beings. These CAFOs are a threat to our immediate health, pertaining to the air we breathe and the food we eat. Just smell the air near a hog farm; all that methane and ammonia gas in the air is not good to breathe in. They need to be boarded up, and the pigs distributed between independent and organic farmers, farm animal benefit shelters or to private homes. This may be a very expensive process, but ultimately it would bring the farming community back to a humane and environmentally aware status.

Sarah Cunniff

Freshman

Zoology