The United States is ground zero for factory farming, with one of the highest per capita rates of meat consumption. Unfortunately, many American agribusiness corporations are now multinational agribusiness corporations, spreading their operations to countries with less regulation, like Mexico and Romania. Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer, was recently bought by a Chinese company, so many of the pork products from pigs raised in the U.S. are sent back to China. The world’s largest meat producer, JBS, is a Brazilian-owned company. So just like all major industries now, the meat industry is globalized with complex supply chains. The EU generally has more stringent regulation of food safety and animal treatment conditions, though there are factory farms in Europe, and most other countries have more small farmers than the U.S.
