Smithfield Foods is the world’s largest pork processor.   According to Wikipedia, the company raises around 15 million pigs a year and in 2007 it slaughtered nearly 115,000 pigs each day.  Pork producers in the United States are highly industrialized.  Pigs are raised in something called a vertical integration system that enables the company to control the production of pork – from gestation to slaughter to meat processing.

Matthew Scully, author of the book Dominion writes: “About 80 mi...