When the Yucatan was declared free of swine fever 20 years ago, the Mexican company Kekén, which is now that nation’s largest pork exporter, began building industrial-scale farms that held up to 48,000 hogs each. Today, the region is dotted with several hundred of these facilities, an estimated 90 percent of which lack environmental permits. In recent years, Indigenous communities have been protesting the company’s land seizures and the contamination of soil, air, and water.
Independent testing has revealed that effluent leaching from the farms’ waste lagoons has tainted the region’s groundwater and springs with high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, fecal coliform, and animal medications. Argentinian filmmaker Patricio Eleisegui says the pollutants have been correlated with an increase in intestinal infections in nearby towns.
Eleisegui, who has been investigating the socio-environmental impact of hog farming in the Yucatán for several years, filmed “Slaughter-land” with Mexican colleague Maricarmen Sordo in 2024, aiming to expose how this industry — with the support of the government but without prior consultation with Indigenous groups, a legal requirement — threatens the survival of the region’s Mayan communities.
About the Filmmakers: Patricio Eleisegui is an investigative journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of the book AgroTóxico, on the health consequences of pesticide use in Argentina, and co-director of the documentary short “Destapa Fatalidad,” about the influence of Coca-Cola on health policies in Yucatán. Maricarmen Sordo is a cinematographer based in Mexico, and director of the documentary Qué les pasó a las beejas? and the documentary short “Una Laguna Negra.” She works at Pata de Perro Films, an independent production company.
About the Contest: Now in its 12th season, the Yale Environment 360 Film Contest honors the year’s best environmental documentaries, with the aim of recognizing work that has not previously been widely seen. This year we received 613 submissions from more than 80 countries across six continents, with the winners selected by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert, Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Thomas Lennon, and e360’s editor-in-chief Roger Cohn.
