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Fecal free: Biology and authority in industrialized Midwestern pork production

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  • Ronald Rich

Abstract

Ethnographically, “fecal free” is a lexical marker that invokes a form of industrialized swine husbandry used in large-scale confinement hog production. Using participant observation and interview research with Illinois contract hog producers, I explore the basis of this husbandry in the biological fragility of confinement hogs. Rather than biology being a simplistic “state of nature,” as it was in early neo-Marxist and populist studies of the 1970s, the frailty of confinement hogs suggests that industrial hog biology is a socially constructed state that justifies the use of contract-based hog production units and their coordination with animal processors. The frailty of confinement hogs results from their genetic characteristics, from the conditions in which they are raised, and from a production rationality that equates animal health with production efficiency. I detail the multiple-site methods, confinement technologies, and contract-based production organization required to raise biologically fragile hogs. And I link hog biology directly to the unequal contract-based relations between actors in industrial pork networks. My study emphasizes the relevance of ethnographic analyses within a political economy of agriculture by describing specific relations of inequalities in local and regional production units and distribution networks that form the building blocks of larger global agro-food systems. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

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  • Ronald Rich, 2008. "Fecal free: Biology and authority in industrialized Midwestern pork production," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 25(1), pages 79-93, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:25:y:2008:i:1:p:79-93
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-007-9094-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. MacDonald, James M. & Perry, Janet E. & Ahearn, Mary Clare & Banker, David E. & Chambers, William & Dimitri, Carolyn & Key, Nigel D. & Nelson, Kenneth E. & Southard, Leland W., 2004. "Contracts, Markets, and Prices: Organizing the Production and Use of Agricultural Commodities," Agricultural Economic Reports 34013, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
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    1. Mary Hendrickson, 2015. "Resilience in a concentrated and consolidated food system," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 5(3), pages 418-431, September.
    2. Peter Goldsmith & Filipe Pereira, 2014. "Outlining a strategic legitimacy assessment method: the case of the Illinois livestock industry," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(2), pages 215-230, June.

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