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City-dwellers who think they’re ingesting polluted air will never complain again after reading this powerful story of what happens to a rural community when a factory farm moves in: “Surry County, NC – with its beautiful rolling farmland and vineyards – is under siege.”  Children can no longer play outdoors; residents can no longer use fans in their homes; property values have plummeted; everyone is breathing in ammonia; and the community has no recourse because factory farms are exempt from the North Carolina’s odor laws.

Photo: Jere Cunningham

Every community needs a superhero like Erin Brockovich to protect it, but most have regular people who are just trying to get by. Small towns are  simply no match for powerful agribusiness. As more rural areas are destroyed (literally) by factory farms, perhaps the residents will join the chorus of environmental and animal rights activists fighting to end factory farming — the industry most responsible for destroying their communities, the environment, our health and, of course, the animals.

In January 2015, egg farmers in California will be required to provide 116 square inches per hen, compared to 67 square inches, which is the industry standard. In response to California’s decision to require out-of-state egg suppliers to provide their hens with the same space, the Missouri attorney general has filed a lawsuit to block the new rules, and several other states might do the same. According to the NY Times, “The beef and pork lobbies are also lining up against the California rules in an effort to prevent any new restrictions on raising livestock.”

The “colony cages” shown in this NYT photo are 49 square
inches bigger than battery cages

The first sentence in this NY Times article is alarming: “Hens in California are living the good life. Many can now lay their eggs in oversize enclosures roomy enough to stand up, lie down — even extend their wings fully without touching another bird.” Does the NY Times really think that being permanently imprisoned in slightly larger cages inside a shed with no natural light and no access to the earth constitutes “a good life?” Putting a positive spin on conditions that are merely “less horrible” gives consumers license to eat eggs from hens who have horrible lives. According to the NY Times, “90 percent of the nation’s roughly 280 million laying hens are still in battery cages about as big as a filing-cabinet drawer.” Please share this undercover footage of battery cages taken by Mercy For Animals.