What Undercover Investigators Saw Inside a Factory Farm Visit bedfordaboveboard for full details But in 2006, everything changed. The rollback of Iowas vertical-integration ban created an instantaneous boom in the building of hog confinements, which signaled an influx of start-up capital but also attracted dramatically more competitors. In 2000, there had been 38 applications statewide to build confinements large enough to require permitting through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. In 2005, the year Smithfield was given an exemption to the law, that number vaulted to 203 applications. The following year, with Cargill and Hormel now granted the same exemption, the number jumped again to 318. In less than two years, Iowa went from having an outright ban on corporate involvement in hog farming to having more than half of its 17 million hogs in confinements owned by or under exclusive contract to three large meatpackers.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 15:59:14 +0000
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