Industrial pork

The pork industry, together with industrial chicken production represents the worst excesses of the agro-industrial paradigm with regard to the factory farming of livestock. Swine raised by this industry spend their entire lives in huge buildings housing thousands of other animals in a totally artificial environment.

Highly reliant on cheap subsidized grain and the cheap energy that makes it possible, the pork industry has radically departed from traditional methods of farming not only on the scale in which each unit operates but also in the degree to which an animal is completely divorced from any semblance of its natural habitat, diet or behaviors.

The end product, while marginally cheaper than pork raised on farms, is of such low quality that the average person of a few generations ago would have not accepted it from their local butcher.

breeding

The "modern" hog is bred for a number of traits that were alien to the traditional hog breeder.

Feed conversion ratio

The amount of weight that a hog gains when fed a certain amount of feed is called the feed conversion ratio. This is very important for an industrial producer who is buying all inputs of grain feed, has high operating costs, low profit margins, and large inventories of swine, an intense focus on feed conversion ratios however, is antagonistic to a goal of pork quality. Animals which grow very quickly, without time to either mature and deposit fat or assimilate nutrients, typically have a soft, flavorless meat that is low in nutrients and pale in color. The pork industry recognizes this as a flaw which is known as PSE pork (pale, soft and exudative).

Body conformation to maximize retail cuts

Cross sectional area of loin chops