None dare call it Big Ag….
….or Big Government, for that matter.
The giant hog farms are in the midst of a desperate struggle to save their piglet crop. Reuters is reporting a devastating virus has now hit about 200 farms in a dozen states and is spreading. No one is estimating how many piglets have died but the mortality rate is apparently about 50%.
Bigger pigs are affected too….and while they really don’t have a handle on the situation….the folks in the government are quickly assuring us that pork is safe to eat. Whatever their other sins, the members of the Unholy Alliance has its press releases close at hand. Here’s the link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-hogs-virus-spreads-idUSBRE95N1DR20130624
Industrial Ag raises pigs in this country as it raises chickens: in big confinement barns. Huge amounts of antibiotics are fed in an only partly-successful effort to keep the animals alive. But once in awhile things get out of hand. Like now.
Wasn’t it just the other day that Smithfield, in announcing its sale to a Chinese company, said the Chinese shared Smithfield’s commitment to quality, healthy pork? We note that this same disease has killed millions of Chinese piglets in their quality, healthy factory farms.
3 Comments
mike ortwein
Will this create problems for you getting piglets? Would it not be better to be self contained on the entire pig production like you are on the cattle? I keep thinking about pigs myself, so I am very interested to see how you proceed.
David
I do not believe this will affect us.
Our source of supply is a small pig farm who “free ranges” his animals in pasture and woods….has just a handful of Tamworth. It’s why we chose him.
He is miles away from any other pigs, as are we.
We review the option of owning our own sows and boar but the economics are against it at our scale.
Rich Hamilton
Have been debating whether to let my sows go and return to purchasing feeder pigs…this makes me think I need to hang on to them as we might have a big pork shortage soon! I have 4 adult sows being bred now and another batch of 4 I planned on saving out of the latest crop of pigletts…