Death on a Factory Farm

A couple days ago I finally found the energy to sit down and watch the HBO Documentary, Death on a Factory Farm, which originally aired on March 16, 2009. The film follows an undercover investigator with the alias "Pete," as he seeks to procure video and audio evidence of animal cruelty at the Wiles Hog Farm in Creston, Ohio. Tipped off by an employee at the farm, the Humane Farming Association hired Pete to gather enough evidence to allow the organization to file a complaint with local law enforcement and a lawsuit. Pete gets hired on the farm as a farm-hand and begins his surveillance. 

Over the course of six weeks, he obtains horrifying video evidence of animal cruelty to the animals on the farm by several employees, including the owners son, who runs the daily operations of the farm. From slamming piglets against the wall and dumping them in buckets, bleeding and still alive, to hanging downer sows with a chain using a forklift to raise them up and hold the squirming animals until they die, the Wiles Hog Farm is chock-full of the type of 'evidence' HFA wants for its prosecution. The film does a great job of limiting the graphic video of cruelty so that even a viewer who is unable or unwilling to watch such acts are able to sit through the entire film. This is important, because turning the movie off halfway would be a grave mistake.

The majority of the film is not video of animal cruelty, it is the story of the investigation and subsequent trial against the Wiles Hog Farm, giving the viewer insight into the way the farmers, the animal rights group, the community, and the law view the issues. Scenes from the actual trial give a real-life feel to the film where many documentaries fall short. The film is eye-opening (or closing, if you dont want to watch a piglet swung like a baseball bat against the wall) and provocative, in the way only a documentary of this kind can be.

This is a film that needs to be widely screened. As the filmmakers point out, animal rights is like the present-day civil rights movement. Our collective ignorance about the way our meat is raised, treated, slaughtered, packaged, and sold is an unsustainable way of living. We get squeamish when we see animals mistreated, so we choose to ignore that it happens and continue to make choices that perpetuate the mistreatment. From hogs, chickens, and cows to salmon, tuna, and sharks, our unchecked appetite for meat and seafood, fueled by agricultural, oil and gas, and pharmaceutical industries, creates the perfect recipe for cruelty, the likes of which are described in Death on a Factory Farm.

Please let me know if you would like a copy of the film, I would be more than happy to give one to you.

keep it fresh...

- Neil