People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is campaigning against Smithfield Foods and against the corporations treatment of pigs. The most recent case focuses on the relatively frequent accidents that occur while farms transport pigs to slaughter. PETA maintains that the Smithfield's practices leave the terrified pigs to suffer for hours while sustaining critical injuries before they meet their grisly end at the slaughterhouse. Smithfield denies any wrongdoing. (Sabine C. Hirschauer, Daily Press, 16 March 2006).

"Pigs raised for Smithfield endure lifetimes of pain, isolation, and intense suffering," says Matthew Penzer, PETA's legal counsel. "Legal threats notwithstanding, while we still have reason to believe that Smithfield is making false statements about its treatment of pigs, we will not stop in our efforts to expose the truth." (PETA)

The animal rights group’s campaign exemplifies an increased concern over animal welfare in agriculture, one of the major topics of discussion at the 2006 annual National Pork Industry Forum:

Pork customers continue to push for increased emphasis on animal welfare, said Sherrie Niekamp, director of animal welfare for the National Pork Board. She said companies, such as McDonald’s, are listening to animal rights groups. “The animal rights movement is still very prominent, and now they seem to be focusing on animal agriculture,” Niekamp said. (Jeff DeYoung, Iowa Farmer Today, 21 March 2006)

Pork producers are acting out of enlightened self-interest. Consumers demand improvements in genetics and nutrition thereby improving the quality/safety of the pork product. The industry is making strides in maintaining sanitary conditions and reducing the risk of contagion, disease and contamination in pig populations.

Still, some corporations have a long way to go, as is the case of Smithfield Foods, one of the largest pork producers in the world. For years, animals rights groups like PETA and United Animal Rights Coalition have campaigned against poor farm conditions. Under factory-farming, pigs are packed in unsanitary stalls without no room to move. Improper waste management exacerbate the disease-prone quarters and case serious respiratory and neurological disorders in pigs. In 2003, two workers from Circle Four, one of Smithfield’s subsidiary farms, walked out, disgusted by the wretched treatment of its animals: “they witnessed workers slamming small pigs against the wall or floor, beating uncooperative sows with metal rods and improperly castrating newborn pigs.” (Organic Consumers Association, 20 January 2003)

In a more recent example, Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) conducted an undercover investigation of Smithfield’s pig farms in Poland:

Secret filming carried out last year by investigators at Wieckowice show hundreds of young pigs being kept in barns without outdoor exercise or daylight. Some appeared to be emaciated, sick or frail.

In a visit to another Smithfield Foods pig farm, at Boszkowo, investigators were shown giant open-air cesspits, filled with animal waste, that local people blame for contamination and pollution. 'Everywhere is the detritus of industrial factory farming - plastic syringe casings, intravenous needles and white clinical gloves - floating in the rancid cesspit and discarded on adjacent farmland,' says the CIWF report. Investigators found that, in one barn at the farm, 26 pigs died in a five-week period last summer. (Antony Barnett and Urmee Khan, The Observer, 2 April 2006)

Three years ago, the pig industry in Westphalia found itself on the other bizarre extreme to Smithfield’s industrial pig production processes. As a response to the mad-cow scare, agricultural officials committed the region to humane farming practices in its major industry, pig farming. To provide a better quality of life for the animals, officials decreed that each pig shall have a stall of no less than one square meter, complete with straw or rubber bedding and chew toys. Farmers were also required to maintain a minimum of eight ours of daylight all year round.

But what really rankled farmers is a declaration that a farmer or farmhand must spend at least 20 seconds looking at each pig each day -- and back up the loving care with paperwork showing he has enough pighands to provide quality time. Without it, a farmer can't get a license to expand or start a pig-rearing business. Many farmers have come to mock the edict as the Kuschelregel, or the cuddle rule. (Vanessa Fuhrmans, The Wall Street Journal, 6 March 2002)

The Westphalians may have gone a little overboard in the cuddle rule. But in spite of its impracticality, the spirit of the law is admirable. No one wants to put the pork producers out of business. Certainly, Smithfield foods is not the only culprit with respect to poor pig farming practices. The goal is to avoid those corporate shortcuts taken in the pursuit of maximum profit and at the expense of animal welfare and consumer health. The goal is a comfortable medium somewhere between Smithfield and Westphalia.