Try to Imagine Millions of Pigs

I've been in and out of town lately and am headed off yet again, so I likely won't be posting much until next week. For today, though, comes news of the USDA's Quarterly Hogs and Pigs report (you can find it in various formats here). As of March 1, 2007, there were 61.1 million hogs and pigs on American farms. This number was up 1% from the same period last year. 6.08 million breeding sows and 55 million market hogs make up this total. Nothing in the study indicates how these millions of pigs are raised, but I'm willing to bet that very few of them resemble the sow and piglets to the right from Sheepdrove Organic Farm in the UK.