Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) is the leading non-profit certification organization dedicated to improving the lives of farm animals in food production from birth through slaughter.
The goal of the program is to improve the lives of farm animals by driving consumer demand for kinder and more responsible farm animal practices.
When you see the Certified Humane Raised and Handled® label on a product you can be assured that the food products have come from facilities that meet precise, objective standards for farm animal treatment.



http://www.certifiedhumane.org/

Duplin County, North Carolina
The first thing Violet Branch does when she wakes up is to inhale through her nose to see whether the smell of hog excrement from across the street has seeped into her home again.

“Sometimes when I wake up the odor is in the house. Sometimes before I go to bed, the odor is in the house,” says Branch, 71, who lives next door to a swine farmer who keeps two lakes filled with a swampy mixture of feces and urine that he periodically spreads on his crops as fertilizer. An acrid odor of rotting eggs fills her yard at least twice a week and occasionally her home, giving her nausea and on some occasions causing her to vomit. All she can do is wait until it passes or ask her son who lives next door to drive her to the nearby Walmart where she paces the aisles until her breathing returns to normal.

More at link.



https://qz.com/433750/the-world-eats-cheap-bacon-at-the-expense-of-north-carolinas-rural-poor/

As largest ships ever approach Wilmington port, optimism about impact on pork and agriculture



By Benjamin Schachtman on March 15, 2017

"These are the largest ships to visit Wilmington - they're the largest ships providing consistent service to the east coast."

WILMINGTON — A new trade route with Asia will bring massive new ships to the area. Port of Wilmington officials hope the new deal will have a positive impact, specifically on North Carolina’s pork industry.

Cliff Pyron, a spokesman for the port said, “the ships on this route are the largest ships to visit Wilmington for a weekly service – in fact, they’re the largest ships providing consistent service to the east coast.”

The ‘EC2’ route – operated by THE Alliance – will connect Wilmington with weekly service from Shangai and other Asian ports by 8,500 TEU (20-foot equivalent) vessels. In comparison, the Maersk and MSC ships that will begin service from northern Europe to Wilmington next month are less than 5,000 TEU (a full-sized 18-wheeler pulls a 2-TEU container).

THE Alliance, a massive international group of shipping companies, will begin operations in April, with service in Wilmington to begin in May. It was formed, in part, to take on the massive 2M alliance of the world’s two largest shipping company, Maersk and the Mediterranean Shipping Company.

Cliff Pyron said the 2M Asia-to-Wilmington route, opened in November of last year, quickly attracted interest from the new competition.

More at link.

http://portcitydaily.com/2017/03/15/as-largest-ships-ever-approach-wilmington-port-optimism-about-impact-on-pork-and-agriculture/