PIG BUSINESS

[Robert Simpson]

PIG BUSINESS You can view Tracy Worcester's Channel 4's documentary about the US and Polish giant hog factory systems and how they are destroying the central European peasantry, their environment and the soul of Poland. There are only two days left to view before the film goes off the C4 website. Allow 90 minutes to view on http://www.channel4.com/programmes/pig-business/4od#2926317

And now we have Swine Flu: who can be surprised?

[Louis Loizou]

Thanks Robert for this timely reminder of Pig Business that I was aware at the edges of my busy mind. I have watched it just in time with only 11 hours to spare.

It is so comprehensive in its reflection of how all agribusiness damages everything and everyone involved that I think I am going to write to Ch 4 or the producers to release it into the public domain so others can see it.

Blessings,

Louis.

[Louis Loizou]

Thanks Robert for this timely reminder of Pig Business that I was aware at the edges of my busy mind. I have watched it just in time with only 11 hours to spare.

It is so comprehensive in its reflection of how all agribusiness damages everything and everyone involved that I think I am going to write to Ch 4 or the producers to release it into the public domain so others can see it.

Blessings,

Louis.

[Robert Simpson]

Yes, this film should be viewed as widely as possible. Its critique is very powerful and TW has done an excellent job exposing the moral obscenity of the hog factories and the spiritual serfdom that overtakes a people that has lost connection with soil and soul.

However I was struck by the absence of any mention that the "smell" was principally ammonia, a precursor agent in the formation of NH3 - nitrous oxide - which has a Greenhouse Warming Potential (GWP) 300 times greater than CO2. Of course, in volume terms there would be much more methane around: a gas with 25 times the GWP of CO2 ! So how the EU can back such industrial agriculture in the name of efficiency while at the same time pursuing a strategy to reduce climate changing emissions beats me!

We have started to culture a small Soil and Soul forum here in Farnham. We've just opened www.soilandsoulforum.ning.com and started a series of regular meeting at The Barn in central Farnham. It's a kind of variant on the Heart and Soul groups some Transition Towns have developed. One mentor, among others, is Alastair MacIntosh author of Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power 2001; Hell and High Water; Climate Change and the Human condition2007 and Rekindling Community: Connecting People, Environment and spirituality2008 I think AM makes for a good guide to set us off in the right direction.

Rob.