The FBI’s Hunt for Two Missing Piglets
October 8, 2017 11:16 AM   Subscribe

On the last day of August, a six-car armada of FBI agents in bulletproof vests, armed with search warrants, descended upon two small shelters for abandoned farm animals: Ching Farm Rescue in Riverton, Utah, and Luvin Arms in Erie, Colorado. Why two particular piglets have become an issue of great importance for the factory-farm industry and the federal administration. [Warning, graphic photos.]
posted by splitpeasoup (19 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
I can tell you this, you don't mess with Utah's money chain. They will come for you. The farm is in Milford, Utah. It is an employment boon to the local economies of Milford, and Fillmore, and other small towns in the area. There is also a large mushroom farm in the vicinity. The broad valleys of the central Utah basin and range complex are good for large agricultural doings. It is a worry that China will buy this business. You never know, maybe the Chinese managers will be better to the pigs, but if the operation is alluring for purchase, it is doubtful they will change how it operates. Have you ever seen the closets that workers live in in Hong Kong? Yeah, things are not going to get better for the Circle Four pigs, or piglets.

I have to day, the ear tag industry has ruined the view of every kind of grazing animal and I am sick of looking at them. I doubt they are recycled, why don't they just chip their inventory?

Utah had an ag-gag law a while back that was struck down in the federal courts. You used to not be allowed to take pictures of farm animals, especially if it had to do with animal rights. I barbecued pork ribs a couple of days ago. That is the problem these pigs face.
posted by Oyéah at 12:46 PM on October 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


Fucking hell. I'm really not sure how I've kept eating meat this long. I'm not going to say this is the last straw, but honestly this might be the last straw.

Like, I know it's just one more story among an endless stream of others like it, but I'm tired of acting like that should make it less persuasive instead of more.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:20 PM on October 8, 2017 [8 favorites]


Pigs and encephalopods. Both are as "smart" as dolphins, whales, dogs, and maybe even chimps. They say if pigs had opposable thumbs they could be passable carpenter's assistants. Hand me the hammer, pig! No the big one!

If you want to eat them, fine. But don't be spectacularly cruel to them.
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:23 PM on October 8, 2017 [9 favorites]


According to the article, Circle Four Farms in Milford Utah is owned by Smithfield Foods, which was purchased in 2013 by Shuanghui International, one of China's largest meat processors. This information is in an inset of the NY Times article in the middle of the article, so if you search for "China" in the article it doesn't return any hits. I'm also not quite sure the implications of your remarks about Chinese managers. If we make adequate workplace and animal regulations in the United States, then we won't have to worry about who owns the facilities. The problem these pigs face is you barbecuing pork ribs? I'm just really confused by your comment. I occasionally eat bacon or other meats if someone prepares it for me, but I haven't purchased any meat for personal consumption in about three years (I ate a paleo-esque diet for a few years before that). I don't really miss it at all.

Making food production more organic and more humane (or should I say more animal friendly?) seems like it would be a win-win for people who want more employment as well as people who want the animals treated better. Treating animals with a modicum of respect requires more employment, not less.

California passed a law a few years ago requiring more space for its chickens. They then passed another law requiring all eggs from other states to meet the same space requirements as California chickens.

These laws seem to have increased the amount of pasture raised chickens and to have increased the costs of the cheapest eggs. Chicken farmers think the law is too tough; environmentalists think the law didn't go far enough. It doesn't seem to have much effected the amount of eggs Californians eat, as I can't find any articles complaining that egg consumption is down in the 20 months since the law was instituted.

There is a new proposed ballot initiative in California that all eggs must be from cage-free hens. LA Times link
posted by GregorWill at 2:35 PM on October 8, 2017 [14 favorites]


I know Greenwald has taken a beating here lately, but that was a powerful article.
posted by clawsoon at 3:01 PM on October 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


The company was purchased because it is profitable, just as it is. You would think if they were better about birthing piglets, and early rearing of them they would get more edible pork out of the deal, but if it is profitable just as it is, the business model is viable, until they are forced to change by legislation. Utah is not going to force any business to do anything. You can take that to the bank as so many businesses do.

I don't kill the pork or chicken I eat. I would like it if they were treated better. I can't say humanely because humans are often murderous and cruel, what was that term, punch clock villains. Humans eat millions and millions of pigs, billions of chicken eggs, and probably billions of chickens yearly. A woman named Temple Grandin helped design ramps for loading cattle, and moving cattle into slaughter houses, that caused them less alarm, and discomfort on their way to death, or harvest, or however you want to name it. It saves money if animals are not abused to death, before they can be harvested. It is also better on consumers if the meat is not full of adrenaline, because of the terror associated with brutal death.

I was a vegetarian for many years. I eat a low meat diet, but I fund the market for meat with my purchases of meat. I hope I have cleared up any questions. Again, Utah is not going to do anything about humane agricultural practices for a player as big as circle four. Circle four had to do better with flies, and stench, the end. Swine flu scared Utah, but now that fear is gone for now.
posted by Oyéah at 3:03 PM on October 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


Factor farming is awful, awful. Many of the practices could only have been thought up by a psychopath and only the desperate work there usually and it effectively dehumanizes those that do. On the other hand every animal rights activist I've ever met (which is a lot because I work in the environmental field and I unfortunately accidentally roomed with one for 6 months) has been one degree of another of a self-absorbed, histrionic liar. They are like the equal but opposite to Trump voters thinking that exaggerating a thing makes it more believable somehow. (It doesn't).

This is something that needs addressing and by normal, reasonable people. We have a symbiotic relationship with domestic animals and it's incumbent upon us to treat them as well as possible and have respect for them. We don't have to treat them like pets or stop using or eating animals but factory farming is anathema to most people who grew up on family farms. Chris Christie is an idiot, the only people factory farming are corporations, not individual voters in Iowa.
posted by fshgrl at 9:35 PM on October 8, 2017 [7 favorites]


I'd completely stopped eating pork until my neighbor saved some piglets from a factory farm and raised them in a lovely (for piglets) muddy field. They were happy pigs and had a completely different taste and texture from factory pigs. Now it's become a whole business for him, and he is locally famous. People happily pay more for pigs they can scratch on the back and see playing around.
posted by mumimor at 10:47 PM on October 8, 2017 [3 favorites]


I wish the article discussed the videos as 360' degree videos rather than 'virtual reality' videos. Virtual Reality implies (to me) that the videos are computer constructed, rather than merely immersive actual video.

While factory farming and this particular example can be particularly disturbing - that's not the take-away I get from this article. The severe bi-partisan corruption (passing anti-speech laws to prevent the uncovering of abuse) coupled with law-enforcement treating activists as terrorists.

The FBI should not be the lap-dogs of industry. If there are two stolen pigs, the local sheriff should be handling the case, and the assigned value (of injured pigs that cannot be used for agricultural purposes) should be the associated value of the investigation.

The FBI being used as a tool to intimidate animal activists strikes me as either a dystopian cyberpunk future, or perhaps even more depressingly simply a continuation of cointelpro.

In my ideal universe the FBI agent that got the DNA samples should be arrested and jailed for animal cruelty, and everyone involved with authorizing the investigation should be fired.

This makes me super angry, but the evil corporation (tm) doing the evil deeds is actually pretty low down on the list of bad actors. Evil corporations will be evil corporations, but when both political parties, the legislatures, and the law enforcement becomes active blatant tools of them we are all truly fucked.
posted by el io at 11:24 PM on October 8, 2017 [7 favorites]


"They were happy pigs and had a completely different taste and texture from factory pigs."
posted by forgettable at 5:02 AM on October 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


Some kind of warning about the images in this article might have been appropriate.
posted by edheil at 5:10 AM on October 9, 2017


"Factor farming is awful, awful...could only have been thought up by a psychopath...On the other hand every animal rights activist I've ever met...has been one degree of another of a self-absorbed, histrionic liar."

so on one side we have psychopathic murders who commit mass torture and on the other side we have narcissistic liars?

"yeah that's a close call, both sides got their problems. don't know what to make of it. maybe that's just the way of the world." he said while picking the remnants of a corpse from his teeth with a toothpick. Soon he decided to see what was on netflix, after some rummaging a new season of bojack horsemen was discovered and all was quickly forgotten...
posted by forgettable at 5:28 AM on October 9, 2017 [7 favorites]


el io: The severe bi-partisan corruption (passing anti-speech laws to prevent the uncovering of abuse) coupled with law-enforcement treating activists as terrorists. The FBI should not be the lap-dogs of industry. If there are two stolen pigs, the local sheriff should be handling the case, and the assigned value (of injured pigs that cannot be used for agricultural purposes) should be the associated value of the investigation.

That the law calls them "terrorists" is the most ridiculous and alarming thing I have read this week. Who are they terrorizing?
posted by clawsoon at 5:45 AM on October 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


They're terrorizing corporate profits, and in America that's the ultimate offense.

I'm an omnivore, but I'm also unequivocally opposed to factory farming. Make more jobs by making meat more humane. I'm fortunate that I am able to afford to buy from a co-op that treats its animals humanely.

We need federal level laws to ban the cruel factory farming techniques, not that approaching it on a state by state basis is bad, but we won't make progress in states that have big agribusiness lobbies until we get federal action.
posted by sotonohito at 7:54 AM on October 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


I think honestly the problem is we've all gotten used to food being relatively cheap. Pork, in particular, makes its money by being the cheap alternative to beef, nearly half price. I am horrified by these conditions and absolutely endorse them changing them - but if pork prices rose near beef prices, I also probably wouldn't buy it at all, which means I don't have much leverage against these companies. I'll probably cut back on my pork consumption, but I'm not sure these companies will change, which is just really sad.
posted by corb at 8:24 AM on October 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


The agribusiness is its own lobby. Every Farm Bureau meeting is attended by Monsanto. All local meetings are attended by corporate reps. We are way out represented by the profit motive. I think about all the little farming towns in Utah, so they have their meeting, corps bring good food, and samples of their wares and technical know how of how best use their products. Legislation is enacted to forward the goals of local farmers, as prodded and educated by big corps. The corps in turn give nice benefits to local pols, and civic leaders, and Farm Bureau managers. Yeah. This is how the ag-gag law was enacted in Utah, as these corps sensed a threat from activism, they have the money to spend to quash it.

Circle Four Farms is an international corporation that crosses state lines, that is probably why the FBI is involved, this involves interstate commerce. If the little piggy ended up in Colorado, that is stolen goods, crossing state lines.
posted by Oyéah at 10:00 AM on October 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


"Circle Four Farms is an international corporation that crosses state lines, that is probably why the FBI is involved, this involves interstate commerce."

Right, but if I shoplift a CD from KMart the FBI doesn't get involved, nor should they. The value of these pigs should preclude the FBI from giving a shit. If a multinational company did me wrong by, say 1000$ (oh, lets call it a bank fucking me over illegally) the FBI would laugh at me and tell me to figure it out myself.
posted by el io at 10:46 AM on October 9, 2017 [6 favorites]


fshgrl: On the other hand every animal rights activist I've ever met (which is a lot because I work in the environmental field and I unfortunately accidentally roomed with one for 6 months) has been one degree of another of a self-absorbed, histrionic liar. They are like the equal but opposite to Trump voters thinking that exaggerating a thing makes it more believable somehow. (It doesn't).

I wonder if they believe that the emotion is the truth, so recreating the emotion is how you recreate the truth.
posted by clawsoon at 11:00 AM on October 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think I might use my question on the green to see if anyone has any good recs for pasture raised animals in AZ. I wasn't able to get past the first pic/paragraph before I felt like sobbing. Ugh, baby hormones. But really, I don't want to give my money to these corporations anymore...
posted by sharp pointy objects at 11:43 AM on October 9, 2017


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