'Suffocating closeness': US judge condemns 'appalling conditions' on industrial farms

Pork giant Smithfield has settled with North Carolina residents who sued over stench, flies and truck traffic from Kinlaw FarmsA US judge has issued a blistering condemnation of industrial farming practices. The judgment comes as one US meat giant finally settles after a six-year legal battle with plaintiffs who sued the company over the stench, flies, buzzards and truck traffic coming from its industrial swine farms in North Carolina.J Harvie Wilkinson III, one of the judges in a case that pitted locals against the Smithfield subsidiary formerly known as Murphy-Brown, decried the "outrageous conditions" at Kinlaw Farms, the operation at the center of the lawsuit - "conditions that there is no reason to suppose were unique to that facility". Continue reading...