When pigs fly
By Georgeann Johnson

Well, pigs are flying around these days. Or at least some of their genetic material is flying along with wild birds as they wing their way along the worldwide migration paths. Every year more than two million wild fowl fly some 1,500 miles eastward across the Arctic Ocean from Asia to North America

Dr. Ellen Silbergeld, professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University, says that the Eurasian pig genetic material of a flu virus could travel by bird wing—or airplane wing—to land into a new environment. Around the world, the industrial farm production of both chickens and pigs is what is providing the likeliest mixing bowl.

In reference to the current flu strain which apparently originated here in Mexico, Dr. Silbergeld says, “The genetic swimming pool found in modern swine, or poultry, production is probably the place where this killer bug evolved.”

As of this writing, the factory farm facility in La Gloria, Veracruz, is the probable site of origin of this swine flu. The first case found in Mexico was that of a four-year-old boy. His family is among the thousands who have complained about the stench and the swarms of millions of flies that thrive in the noxious brown ponds of pig excrement. They are also among the hundreds who have had family members sickened from this toxic environment. So far the complaints have been to no avail.

Who owns this industrial food factory with the beneficent-sounding name of Granjas Carroll? A partnership between a Mexican corporation and an American corporation called Smithfield Farms. Farms, my foot. Smithfield Farms is the largest industrial farm factory of pork and beef in the world. And how did Smithfield Farms come to do business in Mexico?

To put it mildly, the whole world is suffering from the aftermath of the feeding frenzy

of the Wall Street hogs at the troughs. And how did the corporate troughs get from Wall Street to Mexico? It’d hafta be NAFTA. In the 14 years since NAFTA’s formation, many large corporations have moved some, or all, of their production to Mexico. Smithfield Farms is one of those.

Laura Carlsen, a policy analyst for americas@ciponline.org recently wrote: “NAFTA unleashed the spread of industrial livestock farms in Mexico by creating investment incentives for transnational companies to relocate operations there. The ‘race to the bottom’—where companies move production to areas where environmental and health restrictions and enforcement are low— is exemplified in livestock farming.”

I don’t know the figures, but I am sure Smithfield Farms in Mexico have greatly increased their profit margins by the move south. But these profit margins have come at a great cost and with a great danger to others. Regardless of whether Granjas Carroll (which owns dozens of such industrial farms around Mexico) turns out to be the source of origin of this particular swine flu, Smithfield Farms is still contributing to the highly unnatural and highly volatile mix of human, pig and avian genetic material that combines to create a potential pandemic.

Once upon a time, pigs lived in pens. To keep them healthy, farmers only kept a few pigs in each pen. According to Mike Davis, professor of history at the University of California Irvine, in 1965, 53 million US hogs lived on more than one million farms. Today, 65 million hogs are concentrated in 65,000 “facilities.” Davis says, “This has been a transition from old-fashioned pig pens to vast excremental hells, containing tens of thousands of animals with weakened immune systems suffocating in heat and manure while exchanging pathogens at blinding velocity with their fellow inmates.”

What is the answer to cutting the Gordian Knot of giant agro-business, corporate greed, “free-trade” agreements, human belittlement, animal cruelty, spread of catastrophic diseases, rise of human health problems and environmental degradation.

Live locally. Buy locally. Consume wisely. Support organics. Support small farming, whether it is organic or not. Research. Educate. (Send www.themeatrix.com to all of your family and friends). Know what is going on in your community. Keep up with farm bills and organic consumer issues. Raise hell with any of your duly elected representatives who are contributing to the entanglement of the Gordian Knot.

For powerful information on factory farming, look at 

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid
=74&jumival=3632 



The opinions expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not reflect those of Atención San Miguel or the publishers, the Biblioteca Pública.