In Yucatán, Mexico, one pig farming corporation is destroying the environment and with it a centuries-old way of life. Kekén has built its megafarms on Indigenous-owned land amidst formerly pristine jungle, while the waste from its 10 million pigs pollutes the sacred cenotes, the drinking water, and the small-scale farmers’ crops.
Pig Farms Against the People is the story of three communities risking violence, arrest, and kidnap as they unite against Big Ag’s corporate greed and the political forces that defend it.
Pig Farms Against the People is the first episode in our brand new series, From Farm to Fable: Big Ag’s Big Lie. Through these powerful films, shot all around the world, we investigate and expose the devastating impact of animal agriculture on individuals, communities, animals, and the environment.
Sign Up
Sign up to be notified when the next episode drops
Meet the Cast of Pig Farms Against the People
Meet the academics and lawyers, activists, community leaders, and local residents who are uniting to end the unethical and environmentally toxic practices of the Yucatán pig industry.
Dr. Francisco Bautista
Raising pigs needs a lot of resources and oppressed people, otherwise there is no way, no business.
Lourdes Guadalupe Medina Carrillo
In none of the more than 500 pig factories has the community been consulted…They went to ask for information, and they were deceived.
Alberto
It’s not fair to cut down a tree to put up a pig farm. Trees give us more life. The land gives us more life, and the water gives us more life than many thousands of pigs a year.
Carlos
We are being persecuted politically, legally, and socially, aren’t we? The government, hand in hand with the company, is trying to get us to give up our struggle and just become their workers.
Jesus
I can not ask the authorities to help us because they are the ones who caused this. The people here already live in fear.
Roberto Sánchez Campos
Approximately 100 riot police arrived, they beat the compañeros, there was torture, there were some compañeras who had their fingernails pulled out for trying to document what happened.
Scientist from Merida
They are plundering the soil, they are plundering the water, a few people are getting rich and it is impacting all of us who live here.
Jose
The rulers and political parties do not support the people. They support the businessmen. And we have to raise our voices because we have rights.
Mario
They want to put us in jail for five years. But I am here, and I am facing them, and I am facing them head-on.
Chepina and Aitana
We never thought that the government would hurt us; we thought that the government would support us.
Virgilio
We are going to get sick, and we will get diarrhea and gastritis. We can’t breathe anymore because it stinks. When it gets dark, it stinks. And when it gets light, it stinks.
Arturo
I have made my whole life here; I have my wife and children, and there is fear. You can’t go out on the street because you don’t know when you might be picked up. You don’t know when the police might come and take you away.
David
Just a few days before the farm started, we used to drink normal, deep, healthy water on my ranch. It did not make us sick or hurt us. Then I started consuming the water, and it gave me cramps, it gave me diarrhea, and I realized that it was the water that was contaminated.
Irma
Suddenly we heard them shouting, and they said, ‘Here come the police.’ They beat everyone. There was no exception, both women and men. They came to make a mess. We got out of there and after we left, we were scared. We felt powerless.
Jesus
We are not here for the money; we are here for the air and water we breathe. That’s all I can tell you.
Paty
The truth is that it is hard that they come to beat women for defending the water.
Dulce Ramirez
Keken is the most dangerous conglomerate that is destroying millions of animals and our biodiversity and displacing Mayan communities in Mexico. It is a mafia and is part of organized crime in México.
Anonymous
There have been many accidents. On one occasion two people fell into the lagoon, one died and the other wanted to die because it was more expensive to keep him alive because of all the water he swallowed and the skin infections he had because of this contamination.