Factory farming is destructive to the environments that many people call their homes. When people take a stand and fight, though, they face harassment, intimidation, death threats, and social ostracism. Kenny Torrella reports on the stories of some who opposed factory farming, and the consequences they faced.
Jones said that the whole ordeal further revealed the industry’s fragility — without heavy subsidization, deregulation, and dependence on taxpayers to either tolerate its pollution or pay to clean it up, it wouldn’t stand on its own.
The postcard had been sent out by a shadowy group called Iowa Citizens for Truth. One of two people named on the group’s 2016 IRS tax form is Steve Weiss, the same name of the founder and former chief financial officer of Iowa Select Farms — the state’s largest pork producer and the fourth largest in the US. Weiss is now the CEO of NutriQuest, a livestock consultancy in Iowa.