Pig Business: 2200 tomorrow

Excellent news. Tracy Worcester's documentary Pig Business has finally cleared the legal obstacles and should finally be shown on More 4 at 10.00 pm on Tuesday 30 June. It's going out as part of their 'Great British Food Fight', though it is relevant to food production everywhere, particularly in the USA and the EU.

Don't miss this one. It's vitally important for the pigs, sure, and that matters -tremendously. Just as important for humanity that it decisively rejects the mindset that embraces such indefensible, abject cruelty as a necessity, economic expedient, or even revels in it as a positive improvement in efficiency.

Yet this film is far more than just an expose horrors of factory pig farming. Along the way it questions our whole relationship to food and the environmental consequences arising from it at a most fundamental level. In essence, you get what you pay for - be it benign and enlightened, or utterly unacceptable. Here we get that message unequivocally and straight from the horse's mouth.

In that regard we learn of the attitude of one of the massive companies involved in this type of agribusiness, whilst under scrutiny gaping holes are revealed in European Union policy as we see the catastrophic effect it has had on Poland and its agricultural sector, one of the the most sustainable and environmentally benign in Europe, and the Polish diaspora that has resulted. Anyone interested in Poland will therefore find it essential viewing.

Absolutely not to be missed is Bobby Kennedy Jr, who has to be the epitome of an environmental lawyer and a lion amongst environmentalists. Just imagine a world where every environmental lawyer was as a unequivocal and committed. Here again he has been right in the thick of things opposing pig business from the beginning, and finishes the programme with some stirring and well-targetted oratory which we could all well heed.

All yours. Previous posting discussing the film and the legal obstacles it has had to surmount can be found here and here.

Update: Pig Business and Libel Laws

A big apology to those who tuned in to watch Pig Business on Tuesday night and found themselves watching True Stories - Who Killed the Electric Car? instead.

Little was it anticipated that what was intended as a quick announcement of this film would lead us deep into the sacred turf of freedom of speech - internationally - and to Britain's parlous libel laws.

What happened was that Channel 4 revised the schedules at short notice, announcing that a new broadcast date would be found for Pig Business. This was apparently done in order to assure the press that pulling the programme was merely postponing it, rather than abandoning it altogether. However the new slot is likely to be sometime in May, presumably to allow time for the perceived issues to be fully worked through.

Channel 4, like all UK media outlets attempting to report public interest information, has to do boot and braces when making sure all its legal boxes are ticked. This can be onerous, as UK libel laws might be considered to be corporate friendly - if not a major impediment to free speech. So much so that 'libel tourism' is now a serious problem, where foreign plaintiffs come to the UK to sue, even over material that was not published in the UK.

This is not a problem merely for Britain. It is considered to be a such a threat to the American First Amendment - freedom of speech and the press - that draft legislation to counter it is currently being laid before Congress with support on all sides. Here's the First Amendment in full:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

For an example of what is happening at its worst, here is a recent story from The Washington Post titled The Attack of the Libel Tourists which tells us:

'Plaintiffs with little or no connection to the country [UK] are filing libel suits there; British judges more often than not allow them to proceed on flimsy jurisdictional grounds'

while The Guardian reports the issue from the other side of the pond:

'American legislators told Congress that cases heard in London were causing "concrete and profound harm" to the American people.

'The Guardian has learned both the Ministry of Justice and the parliamentary committee on media, culture and sport are planning consultations on libel law reforms, as the US takes steps to protect Americans from the English courts.

'Earlier this month, an American congressional committee singled out "ridiculous lawsuits" permitted in London and heard that "foreign individuals are operating a scheme to intimidate authors and publishers".'

Putting the issue into context:

'The controversy surrounding English libel law is the requirement that authors of defamatory statements must prove the statement is true.

'By contrast, in the US, statements are presumed to be true unless the person bringing the claim can show it was false, there was "actual malice" or that the falsehood was intentional.'

So much for the cherished British notion of free expression, then.


Astonishingly - as she was not on the distribution for the postings and we had never been in contact - in the midst of all this Tracy Worcester somehow managed to get a message through in good time to alert us of the rescheduling in advance. Alas, her email arrived after the library had shut, just too late to pass it on to you in good time.

So whilst the rescheduling may therefore have come as a surprise, three potentially good things emerge from this:

it seems safe to assume that when a programme has to be re-edited under these circumstances we can be sure it has something very important to say

as more notice of the showing should now be possible, more folk will get a chance to learn what it is

while apparently True Stories - Who Killed the Electric Car? turned out to be an important documentary in its own right, described by one recipient as 'essential viewing'.

So a happy ending, at least for those who persevered. Here's what the Channel 4 website had to say about it:

'The curious story of the short life of one of the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built.

'It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles into landfill sites in the obscurity of the Arizona desert?

'Chris Paine's documentary investigates the events that led to the quiet destruction of an apparently promising product.

'Through interviews, ranging from enthusiastic owner Mel Gibson to ex-CIA boss R James Woolsey, the film paints a picture of an industrial culture whose aversion to change and reliance on oil may run deeper then its ability to embrace new, radical solutions.'

Stand by for news of the revised showing of Pig Business which will be circulated just as soon as the information reaches the pensive prognosticator.

Meanwhile for those who can't wait, here's the trailer. Plus there is plenty more graphic stuff on the Pig Business website.

Pig Business - More 4 tonight 2200

The flurry of important environmental events at short notice continues apace.

The latest is Pig Business, a film by Tracy Worcester, which is being shown tonight on More 4 at 2200.

Tracy did a brilliant job chairing the launch of the groundbreaking and quite possibly historic Wild Law research paper last Tuesday, by all accounts. More on that later.

While if all of us had her commitment to building a better world, just imagine how much better things would be. Here's what she does according to Wikipedia - amongst other things.

In 1989, Tracy Worcester began working with Friends of the Earth. Since then, she has been active in green politics as Patron of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, a Trustee of the Gaia Foundation, the Schumacher Society and the Bath Environment Centre, Patron of the UK's Soil Association, and as a member of the advisory board of The Ecologist magazine and a member of the International Forum on Globalisation.

And still has time for making movies!

Pig Business exposes the unconscionable costs of bringing home the bacon on four fronts:

- animal rights

- destroying small farmers - at an astonishing rate as the market is globalised by multi-national farming conglomerates

- polluting the environment - in a big way...

- jeopardising our lives


For example on the environment (my bolding throughout, other than titles)

'One-third of the world’s total cultivable land is dedicated to growing cereal and soya to feed livestock, while a further 7% is used for grazing animals. Eighty per cent of the world's soya beans and 60% of its maize and barley are grown for livestock feed.

'Much of this land is acquired by destroying forests, a major cause of CO2 emissions and loss of biodiversity. Between 2004 and 2005 around 1.2 million hectares of rainforest were cut down as a result of soya expansion, almost entirely for animal feed and livestock pastures.

'How livestock production contributes to 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions

Source: McMichael et al. (2007) Food, livestock production, energy, climate change, and health. The Lancet, 370(9594), 1253-1263

'In Latin America the land devoted to soya crops doubled between 1994 and 2004, and deforestation, particularly of the Amazon rainforest, now accounts for around 75% of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions. Soya cultivation in Brazil to date occupies an area of land the size of Great Britain.'

On the threat to our lives:

'Because of the crowded and unnatural conditions in which factory farmed animals live, they are frequently given antibiotics to prevent disease or bolster their weakened immune systems. Across the world half of all the antibiotics used are administered to livestock. Around 80-90% of all antibiotics used for humans and animals are not fully digested or broken down, leaving them to pass through the body and enter the environment intact through waste.

'Evidence suggests that this over-use of antibiotics is helping to spread drug-resistant strains of diseases such as MRSA and E. coli, which can cause humans serious illness and death. The transfer of MRSA from pigs to humans is already recognised in the Netherlands, and it is feared this new strain of MRSA affecting pigs in some countries will spread to the UK, exacerbating the existing problem.

'Workers at risk
'... at least a quarter of factory farm workers consistently suffer from respiratory diseases, including bronchitis, mucous membrane irritation, asthma-like syndrome, and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

'A deadly environment
'Studies repeatedly show that air and water quality are threatened in and around factory farms. Noxious gases in the atmosphere from manure containing hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, and dangerous pathogens cause ill health not only to those working with the animals but those living nearby. Many local residents report unusually frequent headaches, eye irritation, excessive coughing, nausea and asthma. Hydrogen sulphide may cause nausea, blackout periods, headaches and vomiting, and breathing in too much ammonia can cause severe respiratory damage.

'Excessive spraying of faecal material onto fields results in run-off into nearby lakes and rivers, poisoning the water table, eco system and drinking water. The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources has discovered that 1 in 10 drinking-water wells near factory pig farms contains unsafe levels of nitrates, which has been linked to risk of blue-baby syndrome. Six-month-old infants, pregnant women and adults with immunity deficiencies are especially vulnerable.

'President George W. Bush, in one of his last acts before he leaves office, has proposed to free industrial-scale pig and cattle farms from the Clean Water Act if they declare they are not dumping animal waste in lakes and rivers.

'Exploiting the poor
'In the US, intensive pig farms are clustered typically in non-white areas near low-income communities where people are extra vulnerable to the hazards of factory farms because of existing problems of poor health, poor housing, low income, and lack of access to medical care.

After all that, one may ask why not go the whole hog, keep the poor old hog whole, and just go vegan? George Monbiot came to that conclusion, at least intellectually, in this article last April:

Credit crunch? The real crisis is global hunger. And if you care, eat less meat A food recession is under way. Biofuels are a crime against humanity, but - take it from a flesh eater - flesh eating is worse

While there are some telling environmental arguments put forward by the Vegan Society here and in the side links dealing with land, water and energy.

Perhaps most telling, particularly for those inclined to blame climate change on the growing human population is this:

'World meat production has quadrupled in the past 50 years and livestock now outnumber people by more than 3 to 1. [2] In other words, the livestock population is expanding at a faster rate than the human population.'

And consuming a substantial proportion of the available resources, particularly land, food and water.

More than enough said.