SLOAN, IA -
There's no doubt about it, agriculture's the main business here in Siouxland and in Iowa, but an animal rights group is calling out Iowa hog farms.
The group's describing scenes shown in an undercover video released Wednesday, but local hog farmers say the conditions in that video are an exception and not the rule.
Compassion Over Killing, an animal rights group out of Washington DC, released undercover video showing what they say is standard practice on Iowa farms.
It looks like any other hog operation across the state of Iowa, but it was at this hog farm near Leland, Iowa, where animal rights group Compassion Over Killing sent an investigator, acting as a new employee.
Wednesday, the group released an undercover video from that investigation.
The video shows castrations, tail clippings and herniated intestines, which the group says are standard practices at farms across Iowa.
"What we're exposing is what the agribusiness industry is so desperate to hide," says Erica Meier, Executive Director of Compassion Over Killing. "And it's what they want to do by banning our investigations by passing an Ag-gag law."
An Ag-Gag law's a bill that would prohibit making undercover videos.
After hearing about the video, one Hog farmer in Siouxland says those conditions might not be what they seem.
"Most farmers do the best for the land, the best for the livestock, because it is our livelihood," says Don Lord, who operates a hog farm near Sloan, Iowa.
He says undercover videos can easily be taken out of context, because much of America is so disconnected from the farm.
"Most people don't know anything about agriculture, don't know anything about livestock raising, and how well we take care of our animals," says Lord. "Like I say, a lot of times you find some hidden agenda behind these things that doesn't even pertain to what they put on the air."
Lord supports laws that would prohibit making undercover videos, saying those videos are little more than an invasion of privacy.
A bill to ban undercover cameras passed the Iowa House but it stalled in the Senate last year.
That same bill has been talked about again this year.
That undercover video may give the bill enough attention to pass this time around, but the legislature's goal this year is to avoid getting bogged down with business other than the budget.
