No Economic Advantage to Industrialized Pork Production
University of Tennessee Report

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In October 2008, researchers from the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center of the University of Tennessee released a report¹ commissioned by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, a panel formed to conduct a comprehensive, fact-based examination of key aspects of the farm animal industry.² The report found that the current industrial method of raising pigs for food carries no economic advantage over more natural pig farming.³ The researchers determined that when the costs to society and communities are taken into account – particularly the costs of waste treatment - industrial animal production actually carries a higher price tag.

The industrialized production of pork consists of large, intensely crowded, confined populations of swine, the regular use of antibiotics in feed to promote rapid weight gain, and the storage of untreated hog waste in underground pits or surface lagoons until such time as it is spread on surrounding fields. Farmers began raising pigs and other food animals in this way after World War II, when animal farming was modeled after the successful standardized production techniques emerging in the industrial sector. As industrial production has grown since then to dominate the food animal sector, gradually eliminating small family farm livestock production, proponents have largely justified the change for economic reasons: they argue that larger confinement operations (e.g., over 5,000 hogs) that regularly use antibiotics can produce more animals of predictable weight and health more quickly and cheaply than in natural operations.

While very small, traditional pasture hog farming is more costly per hundredweight⁴ than an industrial system, some alternative methods are competitive. One emerging substitute to industrial-scale farming is the hoop barn – a system designed to allow animals to eat, grow, socialize, and breed in a more natural environment. Hoop barn systems consist of a series of tarp-covered open-ended buildings each typically housing 75 to 250 hogs living on cornstalk or other crop residue bedding. An Iowa State University experimental hoop barn initiative revealed, “On an annual basis, there are no major differences in feed intake, growth rate, feed efficiency and mortality between pigs in hoop structures and pigs in confinement systems,” and, “The annual overall cost of pork production for finishing pigs is similar between hoop and confinement systems.”⁵