....the polluting pig mega-farms supplying pork to the world

[Oscar]

Drugs, hormones and excrement: the polluting pig mega-farms supplying pork to the world

[ https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... er-yucatan ]

Mexico is a leading international pork producer, but Yucatán residents say the waste oozing from hundreds of enormous hog farms is destroying the environment

Patricio Eleisegui in Yucatán and Patrick Greenfield - November 25, 2024 ***Numerous Internal LINKS***

EXCERPT: "As the impact of the mega-farms has grown, residents in Sitilpech have resisted them, forming protests in 2023 against the facilities. But in February 2023, they say they were violently repressed by police who stormed a protest camp, beating those present. Other Maya communities have launched legal disputes against Kekén. At least one of those was upheld by the supreme court, after residents of Homún brought a case detailing “grave and irreversible harm to human health and the environment” caused by a 48,000-pig farm, including “contamination of water … emission of noxious air pollution; the spread of dangerous pathogens”. . . . .

At the beginning of last year, the federal Mexican environment ministry found that the watershed around farms in Yucatán was saturated with concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus from the pigs’ excrement. Analysis of water sample from cenotes, springs and wells in Yucatán by scientists, the communities themselves and the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) has found contamination by E coli and other bacteria. Communities reported an increase in cases of intestinal infections in Yucatán between 2012 and 2019, a period of pig farm expansion. . . . . "

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