--- title: Hidden Camera Controversy on Iowa's Chicken Farms | TIME description: Humane Society investigators wearing hidden cameras have exposed inhumane conditions in some of Iowa's biggest chicken farms. But the methods of their investigation are coming under scrutiny canonical: https://time.com/video/SWI0YLfk/ og:title: Hidden Camera Controversy on Iowa's Chicken Farms og:description: Humane Society investigators wearing hidden cameras have exposed inhumane conditions in some of Iowa's biggest chicken farms. But the methods of their investigation are coming under scrutiny og:url: https://time.com/video/SWI0YLfk/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/SWI0YLfk/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hidden Camera Controversy on Iowa's Chicken Farms twitter:description: Humane Society investigators wearing hidden cameras have exposed inhumane conditions in some of Iowa's biggest chicken farms. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Hidden Camera Controversy on Iowa's Chicken Farms [Watch (HLS stream): Hidden Camera Controversy on Iowa's Chicken Farms](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/SWI0YLfk.m3u8) (9:17)  _Published 2012-01-23. Humane Society investigators wearing hidden cameras have exposed inhumane conditions in some of Iowa's biggest chicken farms. But the methods of their investigation are coming under scrutiny_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:21 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Iowa's First Syrian Refugee Family](/video/87cFJ57T/) ### Iowa's First Syrian Refugee Family [Know Right Now: Cruz Wins Iowa's GOP Caucuses, Dems in a Dead Heat](/video/Gt8SqFSo/) ### Know Right Now: Cruz Wins Iowa's GOP Caucuses, Dems in a Dead Heat [Flavor Flav Spreads His Chicken Wings in Iowa](/video/vMnOcyZ3/) ### Flavor Flav Spreads His Chicken Wings in Iowa --- ## Transcript [ NOISE ]. I came to Iowa with the goal of getting work in the egg industry. They're the biggest egg farming state and we wanted to show what it was like. The best way for us to get truthful information as to how our food is being produced, is to get someone to go get a job with these facilities and work there as a normal employee to document the everyday conditions of what it's like when they don't know the cameras are rolling. [ SOUND ]. Animal rights activists say America's farms are hiding an epidemic of abuse. For the past 20 years they've used hidden cameras to try to prove it. More than 50 farms nationwide have been secretly videotaped by undercover investigators like Cody Carlson and their work has exposed serious food safety and animal cruelty violations. But the farming industry says the videos misrepresent what really goes on. I don't feel that it's fair or proper for people to, unannounced, show up and say, I don't like what you're doing. Some allege that the undercover videos are deceptively edited to mislead consumers. So the industry fought back earlier this year with legislation in Iowa and three other states that would make these videos illegal. If they're going in there and manufacturing an episode to make something look worse than what it really is and then they're going out and they're making all kinds of money then attacking the industry that they don't agree with. Yeah I, I think that's what we're trying to, they're committing fraud there. Early versions of the bill banned all images of farms, even those taken from the outside, raising concerns about constitutionality and whistle blower protection. Later revisions made it illegal to lie on a job application or work under false pretenses. The bill ignited a national debate about undercover videos and whether America's farms have something to hide. In my opinion, this bill is about greed. It's about wanting to ensure that this industry is in no way controlled by any policies related to animal welfare advocates. You remember these images from a Chino slaughter plant. In California and other states, advocates have used undercover videos to pass laws mandating better conditions for farm animals. They're very frightened that that's gonna happen in Iowa. That is one of their major, that is one of their major concerns is that we are going to require that these animals be raised in cage free facilities. Cody Carlson conducted investigations at two of the nations largest egg farms, Rembrandt and Rose Acre, both in Iowa. In a visit back to the farms, he explains how undercover videos are made and why, he says, they do not exaggerate poor conditions. So this is Rembrandt Enterprises, I worked here last year in the winter of 2010. What you're seeing here, each one of these long, white barns are what we call row houses. Basically they can find about 300, 000 birds in each barn in battery cages and they just stretch all the way down these long houses. He legally changed his name to James to conceal his activist past and says he told only one lie to get hired as a farm worker. I provided my real name, my social security number, my date of birth, all my vital information, my correct address. Really the only thing that they started asking now is, whether you are or even have been affiliated with an animal rights group. In fact, he was a contractor for the Humane Society of the United States, which paid his expenses and a small stipend in return for video footage. My job was come in there and do whatever I was supposed to do and videotape whatever it was I saw, that I thought was significant. What his supervisors didn't know was that he wore a pinhole camera while he worked and downloaded hours of footage every night in his hotel room. This is one of the main parts of our job is me and the other workers are going through the cages with a flashlight looking for dead hens. A lot of them had been there for weeks when I got there, so we were talking about mummified corpses that were stuck to the bottom of the floor. One of my co- workers described it as pulling carpets because their bodies have basically become enmeshed in the floor and you have to really rip them out. He actually said that he used to have nightmares about that. The nightmares were like, oh, I'm sorry. Geez, I was pulling the chicken stuff sticking to the cage, yeah. I mean carpets is what I call them, basically. This man was the first of three current and former Rembrandt's employees we interviewed for this story. None of them would go on camera, but they all remembered working with Carlson. He recorded for five weeks. Shortly after, the Humane Society of the United States used his footage to create and online video that made national headlines. In Iowa, chickens thrown into bins so violently, workers say their legs and wings sometimes fall off in the process. Rembrandt did not comment, but Rose Acre Farms responded in the local news, saying that the videos were deceptively edited and staged. This tape has probably been doctored. Rick Tornick also says the Humane Society likely paid someone to commit all of the acts of cruelty shown in the video. Rose Acre denied our interview requests, but they wrote in a statement to Time. The HSUS footage from our facilities was absolutely not reflective of the manner in which the majority of our employees operate. The company also said that Carlson should have reported the animal abuse immediately, instead of waiting months to release the footage. If it's truly about the animals, you don't wait weeks or months to have a press conference and then blast an entire sector of agriculture. You go to your immediate supervisor right then and you say, look, here's what I see in this barn and I want you to know about it. I've seen the signed copy of the, of the employee policy from the person at Rose Acres that allegedly shot this video. They were to report anything they saw immediately, and they didn't do that. Carlson says Rose Acres response to the video was typical. We're well aware, that, ya know, we're up against a very powerful industry and they're gonna do everything they can to attack our credibility. And everyday I'd videotape myself walking into the facility, I tried to get footage of the trucks coming out with the logos on the side. We wanna prove exactly where we are and what we're getting and so they can't doubt afterwards whether or not, you know, that sometimes they'll try to say, well, we don't think it's our farm, and they know it's their farm. We showed footage Carlson shot at Rembrandt to a current employee. He wouldn't go on camera or let us use his name, but he did confirm the footage depicted everyday conditions at the farm. He also said dead birds are just part of the business. We were unable to locate any Rose Acre Farm's employees for comment. The bills in Iowa, and other states did not pass, but similar legislation is expected to be reintroduced. It's just one fight in an ongoing battle between animal activists and a multi- billion dollar farming industry. The battle is especially fierce in Iowa, the nation's top producer of eggs and pork, and where the gap between large and small farmers is growing. Let me chase them out. Chris Petersen is the head of the Iowa Farmer's Union, a group of small farmers. He raises 30 sows on his hog farm in northern Iowa. Come on. Everybody has an occasional dead animal, but the point I'm trying to make is I have nothing to hide here. What are you hiding? That's my response to the industry. Get it out there! Okay, if that only happens occasionally on your farm, open them up, let's see, let's see what's going on. Are you afraid that consumers are gonna more and more buy less from you and look for other ways to buy their meat and eggs and whatever else? I hope so because we need traditional agriculture back in this country in charge. But increasingly our nation's farms look less like Petersen's. More than 90 % of our eggs and pork are produced on industrial farms. And without a law banning undercover videos, industrial farms are seeking their own protection. Shortly after the release of Carlson's footage, an industry group called the Animal Agricultural Alliance issued a list of most wanted investigators with Carlson's assumed name on it. But by the time of the warning, Carlson had trained a new investigator, who in July, released the latest undercover expose shot on a farm in Iowa. 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