swine

The world's leading hog producer, China has culled nearly 40,000 hogs in its attempts to stop African swine fever since the disease, deadly for hogs but no threat to humans, was spotted on its farms last month. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said the disease will almost certainly emerge in other countries in Asia.

Livestock shows are a standard part of county fairs nationwide and plenty of fair-goers walk through the barns to see hogs, cattle, sheep, chickens and other farm animal firsthand. And now, the Centers for Disease Control says 18 people, all but two of them children, tested positive for new strains of influenza after attending agricultural fairs in Ohio and Michigan during August, reports Harvest Public Media.

Due to privacy laws that have stymied regulators, no one can say for sure how many CAFOs are in the U.S., much less how large the animal operations really are, says Inside Climate News. “Thousands of industrial farms across the country release contaminants into the nation's water and airways, but in many states like North Carolina, the public has limited access to information about them."