“Little Red Barns - Hiding the Truth, From Farm to Fable” by Will Potter, 2025 (Part 1)
Potter is a journalist who grew up in the punk milieu,
which promoted animal rights. He became
a plant-based eater after witnessing the abuse suffered by farm animals in
grainy black and white videos shown at punk shows. The videos were peering into the secrets of
the industrial animal food system, and it has infused his journalism
since. Potter decided to become a
‘witness’ to the brutality unleashed on farm animals, the planet, workers and
other humans by 'Big Ag.' His emphasis is not on
sabotage, but on civil disobedience and especially journalistic whistle-blowing. In this he comes up directly on the issue of
censorship in the ag industry designed to hide the profitable functioning of animal
cruelty and immense environmental damage.
The image of the modern farm that children grow up with and
many adults still believe is of apple-picking, hayrides, corn mazes and petting
zoos. And of course a nice red barn full
of clean smelling hay bales. This book will disabuse you of that notion. In
animal agriculture the ‘small farmer’ is almost dead. Large farms, ranches and corporate entities
dominate production. Middle farms are
contracted to large meat producers. 99%
of animal production is in the combine’s hands.
Slaughterhouse workers, as was noted by Upton Sinclair in “The Jungle,” are also ground up
by the meat machine. Injuries to workers
in this industry are 40% higher than others.
Many are defenseless immigrants, some without papers, working at
ridiculous speeds. Some have to wear
Pampers© because the bosses do not allow bathroom breaks. Workers experience breathing problems, cuts, amputations, carpel tunnel, exhaustion and death. There
are 500K semi-secret child laborers in food industries, so laws to allow it are being presented
in several states by ALEC. Prisoners
service fast food chains for pennies in a rerun of convict leasing. Actual slavery is rampant world-wide in the
ag industry in Brazil, Guatemala, Thailand, Mexico and others. Even people living around these ‘factories,’
like the giant Chinese-owned hog facility “Circle Four Farms” in Utah, suffer
from breathing problems, asthma, diarrhea and the flu. Circle Four is the biggest industrial hog farm in the
state, at 90 square miles with 600k hogs ‘raised’ at a time. It's not a little red barn.
Da Law?
Pott’s looks at state Ag-Gag laws which ban journalism; the
national Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which criminalizes journalism and
civil disobedience; and the profound weakness of the national Animal Welfare
Act, which does not cover farm animals. Then there is the Humane Methods of Slaughter
Act, but this only applies at the moment of death and does not include chickens
or turkeys. Add the leniency and
collaboration of national meat inspectors from the Dept. of Agriculture with
corporate farmers and the willing
cooperation of local police and FBI arresting journalists and
activists uncovering or ending animal abuse.
Behind that is the wholesale political support of the Meat lobby by both
political Parties, who regularly appoint an Ag hack as head of the Department of
Agriculture, who will repeat the mantra of ‘get
big or get out.’ Together you have a
recipe for a rural dictatorship by meat oligopolies. Even activists filming from public property
have been arrested, or charged with ‘animal cruelty’ in a classic case of
projection. In no other industry has
‘regulation’ been so lax. Potter calls it the ‘Wild West.’
The biggest twist were state laws in Wyoming, North Carolina
and Arkansas which widened ag-gag laws to include all ‘industrial operations.’ This
banned whistle-blowing, information (data mining), photography and testimony far
outside animal facilities, to every sector of the economy. Capital gets privacy to do what it
wants.
Ag gag laws in 9 states were propounded and successfully
passed by the Republican law-factory, ALEC, with Iowa being the first in
2011. What are they hiding? Well, sick animals still being used as food.
Overflowing waste lagoons. Cruel and tiny cages. Standard animal ‘surgery’
without anesthetics. Deforestation. Animals being beaten and tortured. Hormones,
anti-biotics and chemicals in the water. Sinking groundwater / river-lake levels
due to alfalfa and hay production for animal feed. Terrible air quality.
Polluted water. The worst are the waste lagoons, which kill workers and make neighbors
sick or make them move. A toxic ‘organic’
brown mist is even sprayed on crops as ‘fertilizer,’ which is then sold as
food. Potter takes a choking tour around
Yakima, Washington to see the dairy cattle lagoons up close. Some overflow onto public roads, to the point
you cannot drive down them. He calls it
his ‘poop tour’ and it actually made him physically sick and unable to breathe.
What if you lived next to one of these massive animal waste holes? Ah, it's only those poor souls in rural areas...
 |
| A Centralized Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) |
Just
the Facts, Ma’am…
Here are some facts on inefficient, cruel and toxic industrial-scale
animal agriculture: 1) Only 2% of the
population work in agriculture It is
highly mechanized now. 2) Hog,
chicken and cow magazines encourage farmers to see animals as ‘machines.’ 3) 4 companies control each beef,
pork and chicken industry. 4)
Before activists started filming, there had never been a state animal cruelty
investigation at a farm. 5)
200 million male chicks each year are ground up, gassed or electrocuted because
they do not lay eggs. 6) Undercover activists are arrested because
they do not report the first abuse, as they are trying to establish a criminal
pattern. 7) Prospective employees
are screened for being pro-animal. 8) The first ag-gag laws banned all coverage; the
second criminalized giving false info on a job application; the third advocated
anyone seeing animal abuse to notify them immediately. This allowed them to fire one ‘bad apple,’ stopping
the establishment of a pattern of abuse by the firm. 9) The animal food industry’s use of ‘terrorism law’ has
spread internationally, as CAFO’s are now existing in many other countries,
with the U.S. government aiding these efforts. 10) A meat industry
spokesperson said the ‘good news’ about
‘land-based protein’ was that
awareness of animal cruelty, inefficiency, environmental damage and toxic
byproducts ‘was low.’ 11)
37 states exempt agriculture from animal cruelty laws. 12) 10 billion
animals are slaughtered yearly in the U.S.
Potter praises the work of PETA, the Humane Society,
Compassion Over Killing, Compassionate Action for Animals, Mercy for Animals,
the Western Watershed Project and the ASPCA.
He remarks that activist citizen journalists have replaced many
established journalists on this ‘beat,’ by filming, getting jobs in
slaughterhouses and animal holding cells and reporting abuse. He himself tried to use drones to photograph
the facilities and incidents, closer than satellite images, more distant than
personal photography. However none of
these groups link industrial agriculture to capitalism itself or the profit
motive. How would a socially-responsible food system be run?
Potter cites plenty of studies and statistics to show that
a plant-based diet would make huge strides in reducing global carbon
emissions. Plants need less water,
less energy and less inputs overall than dairy, eggs or meat, with no shit,
antibiotics or hormones. He thinks animal agriculture in countries where other foods are
widely available can lead the way, especially those with huge CAFOs. For him it is a far more effective ‘sacrifice’ to
make then buying an electric car or not flying.
The average U.S. citizen eats 224 pounds of meat per year; the average
European 152 pounds and the average African 22 pounds. And that is not even mentioning the flood of
cheese in the U.S. or Europe. Ending or limiting animal ag would
also have a huge effect on land use, for instance removing the reason to cut down the
Brazilian rain forest, which is 87% motivated by cattle raising and feed. But this book is not just a plea for being
vegan. It is a criticism of a capitalist
industry that has outlasted itself, and become its opposite.
(End
of Part 1)
Prior blogspot reviews on this subject, use blog search
box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms: 'Will Potter,' 'Green is the New Red,' 'CAFO,' ‘agriculture,’ ‘vegetarianism’ ‘veganism,’ ‘industrial agriculture,’ “Upton
Sinclair.'
And I found it at May Day Books, which has many left books
on agriculture.
Red Frog / August 1, 2025
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