Propaganda power, part II

A slightly different take on factory farming. Kudos to Chipotle for the creative criticism of industrial agriculture, but Chipotle as a roadside taco stand? Not so sure about that.

For more info, check out The Salt.

Power of the Pork Propaganda

In the state of Indiana, farmers no longer raise pigs, they ‘grow pork’. Lots of it. Enough to meet the ‘pork needs’ of every man, woman, and child in Indiana, plus 20 million more people across the country, and the world. All clever bits of word play from the pork lobby.

Perhaps scenes from Babe flash quickly through your mind: a farmer and his dell, memories of a bygone era. Nope. In farming today most of our pork needs are met by Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), which are about as bucolic as they sound. Today’s pigs are raised by the thousands and tens of thousands in buildings that resemble factories more than barns.

To justify this shift, the folks at Indiana Pork have produced a short and shockingly simple propaganda film about the merits of factory farming, available for free to teachers across the state. It’s full of important questions like “Do pigs miss going outside?” and “How do we know when one pig is sick?”. And the answers are probably not what you’d hope. This is what our fourth graders are learning about farming today:

Download the full video here: http://foodforthoughtsite.com/