A threat to bacon...

[JimC]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-12/p ... s/10236890

The world's largest pig abattoir has shut down and stock moved as Hurricane Florence moves towards North Carolina on the US east coast, threatening an environmental disaster.

Hurricane Florence was expected to blow ashore late on Thursday or early Friday (local time), then slow down and wring itself out for days, unloading 300-600mm of rain that could cause flooding well inland and wreak environmental havoc by washing over industrial waste sites and massive pig farms.

[pErvinalia]

I hope the US has stockpiled bacon to cover any shortfall...

[Rum]

Pigs get to live a few more days anyway.

[Joe]

No worries, we have a backup.

With assets of corn, soybeans, farmers and packing capacity, Iowa is the ideal location for pork production. The “Tall Corn” state also needs plenty of fertilizer to produce the bushels of corn and soybeans fed to pigs. Approximately 10 finishing pigs from weaning to market provide the nutrient needs of an acre of Iowa cropland on a semi-annual basis. Nutrients from one 2,400-head pig barn benefits a half-section of land (320 acres). One hog consumes approximately 9 to 10 bushels of corn and 100 pounds of soybean meal from birth to a market weight of 275 pounds!

Iowa Pork Industry Facts:

Iowa has more than 6,000 hog farms.

• 94 percent of Iowa’s hog farms are family owned enterprises.
• As of 2015, 141,813 jobs were associated with the Iowa pork industry.*
• One in nearly 12 working Iowans has a job tied to the pork industry.*
• Of the Iowa hog farms, 39 percent (2,451 farms) have 1,000 pigs or less.
• At any one time, there are approximately 20 million pigs being raised in Iowa.
• Iowa producers market approximately 50 million hogs a year.
• Nearly one-third of the nation’s hogs are raised in Iowa.
• Iowa is the number one pork producing state in the U.S. and the top state for pork exports.
• Exports of pork from Iowa totaled more than $1.1 billion in 2017.
• Japan, Hong Kong, Canada, Mexico and South Korea are the leading customers for Iowa pork.

Iowa Pork Production Economic Contributions:

Hog production contributed $13.1 billion to the state economy in 2015.*
The pork industry contributed $36.7 billion in sales in 2015.*
Pork slaughtering and processing facilities generated $23.7 billion dollars in 2015.*

You didn't really think the Iowa caucuses were always first for some other reason, did you?

[laklak]

I worked in Sioux City, Iowa, for about 5 months on a Y2K project. The "World's Largest Hog Lot" was very near their airport. Goddamn it stank, but bacon was cheap. An unexpected by-product was the plethora of great Mexican restaurants, because most of the slaughterhouse workers were Mexicans.

[JimC]

Iowa sounds like hog heaven...

[Joe]

A bastion of pork-barrel politics.

[rainbow]

A bastion of pork-barrel politics.

Pigs might fly.

[pErvinalia]

[NineBerry]

Fucking Islamization!!!

[laklak]

They've already raised bacon prices. 9 fucking dollars for a pound of thick sliced. Fucking profiteers should be hung from lampposts.

[Hermit]

They've already raised bacon prices. 9 fucking dollars for a pound of thick sliced. Fucking profiteers should be hung from lampposts.

Oh. Is the kernel of free enterprise - price being governed by the ratio between supply and demand - abhorrent to you all of a sudden?

[laklak]

Only if it affects me, otherwise they're just a bunch of entitled whiners.

Time to get into hog farming from the look of it.

[Brian Peacock]

[Cunt]

how far north can one raise pigs, before needing to pay O&M on a building for them?

I might just stick to bison...They're easier to tend.