The Price of Pork: Across Illinois, the nation’s fourth-largest seller of pigs, large hog confinements have exploded in number and size. Raising pigs for slaughter in an efficient, factorylike setting, the operations help hold down the price of the most widely consumed meat in the world. But all that cheap pork comes at a harsh and until now unmeasured cost.
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Animal Abuse: “Questions about how the pigs, cows and poultry we eat are treated — what the animals are fed, how they are medicated and how they live and die — are putting new pressures on a U.S. livestock industry that until recently has focused almost exclusively on productivity and profit.”
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Pollution: Analyzing thousands of pages from state agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Natural Resources and the attorney general’s office, the Tribune found that pollution incidents from hog confinements killed at least 492,000 fish from 2005 through 2014 — nearly half of the 1 million fish killed in water pollution incidents statewide during that period. Pig waste impaired 67 miles of the state’s rivers, creeks and waterways over that time. Using either measure, no other industry came close to causing the same amount of damage.
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The Job: Some operators have prospered under the contract system, but the agreements also can lock farmers into a life of grinding toil and leave them barely able to make their bank payments. Seabaugh likens himself to an indentured servant, saying he earns just a living wage for grueling workdays 365 days a year. “If I wasn’t in it so deep, I’d never do it again,” he said.
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