The Factory Farm, Concentration of Life, and Food Security

Alex BlanchettePhD Candidate, University of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Tufts Universityblanchet@uchicago.edu(All images by Sean J. Sprague)

Thousands of pounds of bones for conversion into ramen soup base and pork oil. These products will then be shipped to wholesalers in Japan.

Sows in Gestation Crates on a 2500-Head Industrial Breeding Barn

Waste Water Treatment Plant:

One of the world’s most advanced, this plant was funded

by local taxpayers to treat the excessive levels of grease and

nitrogen coming out of the slaughterhouse’s pipes, which had overwhelmed the capability of the

previous system

Breeding Records of an Industrial Sow: The company records production metrics and performance of each genetic line of

sows for further refinement and ensuring uniformity across the herd.

Truck Moving Pigs: Despite the fact that seven million pigs are annually raised in this region,

they are largely invisible except in the form of scent and the odd glimpse of a snout in a moving truck.

Rainier Foods’ “Genetic Flow” model, which dictates how pigs will move through the High Plains landscape from barn to barn as they grow

Various Hog Confinement Barns, Buildings and

Technologies

Raising/Finishing Barn for Pigs between 150-280 Pounds

For more information, or for copies of the sources used below, please contact blanchet@uchicago.edu

Additional sources used for this presentation

Finlay, Mark (2004) “Hogs, Antibiotics and the Industrial Environments of Postwar Agriculture” in the edited book “Industrializing Organisms” (Shrempfer and Scranton, Eds)

Lowe, Celia (2010) “Viral Clouds: Becoming H5N1 in Indonesia” in Cultural Anthropology. Vol 24, No. 4

And see “CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Cost of Confined Animal Feeding Operations” on the Institute Website under “Resources”