Fecal free: Biology and authority in industrialized Midwestern pork production

Abstract

Ethnographically, ''fecal free'' is a lexical marker that invokes a form of industrialized swine husbandry used in large-scale confinement hog production. Using participant observation and interview research with Illinois contract hog producers, I explore the basis of this husbandry in the biological fragility of confinement hogs. Rather than biology being a simplistic ''state of nature,'' as it was in early neo-Marxist and populist studies of the 1970s, the frailty of confinement hogs suggests that industrial hog biology is a socially constructed state that justifies the use of contract-based hog production units and their coordination with animal processors. The frailty of confinement hogs results from their genetic characteristics, from the conditions in which they are raised, and from a production rationality that equates animal health with production efficiency. I detail the multiple-site methods, confinement technologies, and contract-based production organization required to raise biologically fragile hogs. And I link hog biology directly to the unequal contract-based relations between actors in industrial pork networks. My study emphasizes the relevance of ethnographic analyses within a political economy of agriculture by describing specific relations of inequalities in local and regional production units and distribution networks that form the building blocks of larger global agro-food systems.

Where's the Farmer? Limiting Liability in Midwestern Industrial Hog Production

“…While some attention was paid to these efforts, scholars primarily continued to focus on vertical integration as the prevailing model of industrialized agriculture. Rich (:81), for example, conceptualizes those raising hogs in Illinois as “producers” running “independent operations” bound by individual contracts with firms. Producers, regardless of the type of production, are understood as operating within constrained conditions, including feeding animals owned by another grower or firm and adhering to their rules (Boyd and Watts ; Davis ; Heffernan ; Heffernan, Hendrickson, and Gronski ; Mooney ; Morrison ; Striffler ; Stull and Broadway ).…”

The adoption, diffusion, and evolution of organizational form: insights from the agrifood sector

“…Like poultry production, hog biology is necessary for understanding ‘the use of capital‐intensive technology to control animal growth, and enables off‐farm entities to centralize authority, discipline production, and ultimately to coordinate primary producers in networks of production and distribution’ (Rich, 2008, p. 80). Hogs produced in confinement operations differ from hogs produced in more traditional, free‐range, systems.…”

“…Moreover, pigs that do well outside of confined operations—that is, those with a relatively high fat content—are not optimal for the mechanical processing favored by large‐scale processors and meat packers which require lean carcasses (Whittemore and Kyriazakis, 2006). As Rich (2008, p. 81) states: ‘Leanness, then, the genetic key to hog biology, is part of the standardization of inputs for large mechanized processing plants than enables animal packers to coordinate production in different phases of pork filieres.’ Leanness is linked to confinement because lean hogs are biologically fragile, being susceptible to several forms of stress. Stress arises from proximity to other animals, variations in feed formulations, and the genetic characteristics of lean hogs which ironically are exacerbated within confined production systems.…”

Understanding the roles of economy and society in the relative risks of zoonosis emergence from livestock

“…Intensifying livestock production implies industrialization and reindustrialization of farm and food chain processes [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44]. Industrialization refers to the adoption of production and management processes commonly associated with manufacturing, including processes of standardization, divisions of labour and applications of technology [40].…”