Factory Farms Are Anything but ‘Traditional’
North Carolina environmental justice groups have been organizing against factory hog farms ever since Smithfield moved into their backyards. Community cries for a healthy environment, with breathable air and drinkable water, often fall on deaf ears. But this time — after years of building power — the community won. A Fourth Circuit court ruled against Smithfield in a series of mass action lawsuits brought by mostly Black residents of Eastern North Carolina. It was a historic victory, for community organizers and legal advocates alike.
But after Smithfield’s loss, the corporation told the story a little differently. Smithfield wants people to think that attacks on their industrial practices are attacks on farmers. Conservative media played along — a Wall Street Journal article covering the case mischaracterized the suits in question as challenging “traditional methods of hog farming”. This misnomer for industrial animal agriculture perpetuates a dangerous myth that corporate agribusiness speaks for farmers. In reality, the industry keeps farmers from doing what they do best — growing food for their communities.
Traditionally, farmers make choices to grow food in the best way given their land, weather, and community needs. But Smithfield standardizes every aspect of the growth cycle to maximize profit. Contracted growers must follow Smithfield’s rules, even though they know how to farm best in their local context. This is not agriculture and these facilities are the furthest thing from a farm.
Corporate control of the food system caused the problem here — not hog farmers. Smithfield made their contract growers use open pits for liquid manure in a region with frequent floods and high water tables. Growers had no choice but to blast out noxious chemicals and spray untreated waste on nearby land. So hog manure particles leached into the water and fogged the air.
And neighboring communities had to pay the price. The Wall Street Journal called the lawsuits as being over the noise and smell of hog farms. But let’s be clear — a mostly Black rural community could not breathe the air outside their homes. It took these nuisance suits to hold Smithfield accountable for practices that they knew were hurting the predominantly Black fenceline communities for decades.
After the communities won, Smithfield asked for a retrial. They tried to invalidate the case because Kinlaw Farms, the contract grower, had not been tried and were a “necessary and indispensable party” to the lawsuit. But Smithfield should be held liable for its own dirty and racist practices. At Public Justice, we partner closely with farmer-led organizations to tell courts that the industry does not speak for them. That’s why we filed an amicus brief supporting the communities explaining that contract growers have no say in how these facilities operate.
The Fourth Circuit agreed and threw away Smithfield’s appeals, ruling that only the corporation was responsible for the harm. This victory is groundbreaking because it affirms that growers cannot be held liable for following their contracts. As a result, big agriculture may now loosen its control over contract growers.
The case also changes how courts see industrial agriculture. Before, courts understood factory farm pollution as part and parcel of rural life. But this decision makes it easier to prove in court that corporations cause severe harms that disproportionately burden Black people. ‘Agriculture’ is no excuse for environmental racism.
The court even explained why factory farms are far afield from traditional agriculture, distorting the relationship between humans and hogs. In his opinion on the case, U.S. Circuit Judge Harvie Wilkinson III writes:
“How did it come to this? What was missing from Kinlaw Farms — and from Murphy-Brown — was the recognition that treating animals better will benefit humans. What was neglected is that animal welfare and human welfare, far from advancing at purposes, are actually integrally connected. The decades-long transition to concentrated animal feeding operations (“CAFOs”) lays bare this connection, and the consequences of its breach, with startling clarity. Once, most hogs were raised on “smaller, pasture-based hog farms.” Now, the paradigm has shifted: “large numbers of hogs, often many thousands” crowd together in each of the many cramped “confinement structures” that comprise the typical hog CAFO.”
The phrase “traditional farming” paints a rosy picture of a much darker reality — corporate abuse, mandated pollution, and environmental racism. If we want to solve a problem, let’s call it what it is: corporate controlled industrial hog production.
