By the meat industry’s own assessment, Smithfield Foods — the largest pig and pork producer in the world — is a sustainability leader, recently winning an award from the North American Meat Institute for superior environmental progress. But anyone who’s unlucky enough to live near one of Smithfield’s facilities knows exactly how dubious this recognition is. Factory farms are disastrous for animal welfare and a constant risk to the environment around them, as the manure from thousands of animals could spill and contaminate community water, air and land at any moment. One spill in Missouri last year leaked more than half a million gallons of waste into nearby streams, which the company insisted was a rare accident.

This week, the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP) published The Rap Sheet on Smithfield’s Industrial Hog Facilities in Missouri, which catalogs exactly how often the meat giant has a contamination incident at one of their facilities. The results are shocking: just 21 concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) reported 748 manure spills in the last 30 years, totalling more than 3.6 million gallons of waste dumped into local waterways and onto adjacent fields. Even worse, the state failed to respond to many of the spills, a regulatory failure that prevents communities from taking full legal action against Smithfield. 

It’s clear that the pork industry won’t clean up its own act unless it’s forced to; it needs aggressive regulation that forces companies to downsize and eventually eliminate CAFOs. Industry-wide fixes that clamp down on the worst practices of the industry (like California’s recently enacted animal welfare standards) might force the meat industry to produce meat in a way that’s better for animals and the environment. But with that push awaiting review from the Supreme Court, the importance of local, highly engaged citizen groups like SRAP and North Carolina Environmental Justice that organize communities against these ever-expanding projects is clearer than ever. 

When Did Vegan Cheese Get So Good?

Vegan cheese isn’t new, but it's recently become more diverse, delicious and easy-to-find than ever. In this vegan cheese primer, we cover what’s changed, what you can find at your supermarket and what you can make at home.

ABCs of Reducing Food Waste

As we covered in episode 4 of our podcast, “What You’re Eating,” food waste is a huge problem. The United States wastes roughly 40 percent of its food, which leads to pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental damage, and is a waste of natural resources and money. Did the podcast inspire you to cut back on waste in your own kitchen? Check out our guide, “The ABCs of Reducing Food Waste” — it’s packed with tips to help reduce your food waste at home and save money. 

How War, Weather, and COVID-19 Are Rekindling the Food vs. Fuel Debate

OUR TAKE: The cost of cooking oils — mainly from soybeans, corn and other commodity crops — has risen sharply in recent years, with the war in Ukraine further stressing supplies. But while that disruption may have kicked prices too high for many buyers, The Counter explores the underlying reason they were so high to begin with: biofuels. US fuel policy mandates that a certain portion of fuels come from crops instead of oil and gas in order to keep demand high for commodities like corn and soy. But too often, fuels like biodiesel and ethanol are inefficient uses of food crops that just unnecessarily expand the footprint of industrial agriculture. 

Salmon Travel Deep Into the Pacific. As It Warms, Many ‘Don’t Come Back.’ 

OUR TAKE: Salmon begin and end their lives in the rivers where they breed, but spend most of their time in the ocean, where they’re a lot harder to keep track of. The Washington Post explains that, as a warming climate changes the conditions in the ocean, it’s harder than ever for ecologists to understand what kind of pressures salmon populations are facing at sea. Some appear to be starving, while others are booming to record levels. Given the critical role that salmon play to ecosystems and communities across the Pacific, more research is needed to understand how to best bolster salmon populations that are struggling. 

Food, Farming and Forestry Must Be Transformed To Curb Global Warming, U.N. Says

OUR TAKE: This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the last portion of their report on climate change. Reuters reports that the final section focused on solutions and identified several opportunities within the food system to slow or reverse emissions. Halting deforestation — which often happens to expand industrial agriculture for animal feed — is a critical first step. As the IPCC identifies, dietary change, especially in high-income countries who consume the most animal products, is also important, though this presents problems for governments who invest heavily in promoting agribusiness. 

US Taxpayers Are Spending Billions to Keep Farms on Flooded, Unproductive Land

OUR TAKE: An increasing frequency of extreme flooding in the fertile Mississippi watershed area is leaving much of the farmland waterlogged and fallow. Despite this, reports Civil Eats, farmers in the area have received billions in crop insurance and subsidies, “actively encouraging farming in this area where farming should not be done.” Instead, argues a new Environmental Working Group report, the money should help fund federal conservation programs and the land should be retired and returned to grassland, shrubs or trees, which can store carbon and help mitigate climate change.