55,000 pigs die in fire

[snoozy]

This boggles my mind. A fire at a German pig breeding facility has killed about 55,000 pigs, mostly piglets. What boggles my mind is the size of the operation. We (meaning humans) should not be raising animals on this kind of industrial scale. It is insane. And if such huge operations did not control the price of pork, then small farmers and people who want to make a small living raising animals more humanely would have a better chance at succeeding as small farms. And our food would be a better product.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/over-55000-animals-believed-dead-in-fire-at-german-pig-farm/2021/04/01/b7658c7c-92e6-11eb-aadc-af78701a30ca_story.html

[Maura]

It surprises me that they appeared not to have fire thingies. Sprays in the ceiling.

[mogal]

Unfortunately, there are a lot of CAFOs (confined animal feeding operation) in Missouri, three very close to us, one owned by a huge corporation and it's visible from the interstate when we go to the largest town in our area. There is another place north the interstate, also in our county, owned by a private individual that I've never seen and a third owned by a group of farmers about 3 miles southeast of us "as the crow flies." This last one has changed its manure handling methods in the last few years because it wasn't too uncommon in the first years we lived here that when the wind/humidity conditions were just right that we could smell it. It wasn't to the point it would gag you but you didn't want to sit outside in the evenings.

I'm with you snoozy. They are inhumane. In addition, the big one along the interstate is quite close to a stream and if their effluent dam should breach, it would have devastating results for the stream. There are already concerns about its affecting the ground water simply because it's there. Surrounding farms, some in the same families for generations, are affected because property values have plummeted. Not a good situation all the way around but the corporation based in IOWA!!! is making a boatload of money. Only the people who sold their land for this cancer did and now they are out of the picture, leaving others to clean up or live with the mess.

[Maura]

Michigan changed its laws regarding livestock so that farmers can have CAFOs. It's inhumane.