Missouri residents win suit against hog farm

As you may know if you read this, as unsurprising as it is, I am very much against so called concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These are large scale industrialized farming operations that facilitate the breeding, raising and slaughtering of large numbers of animals in the cheapest way possible for the company. And I say "the company" because it is well known that CAFOs are quite costly, just that most of that cost is externalized. We pay for it with our health, with our environment, with our tax dollars, and so on. Few CAFOs are not directly or indirectly linked to Big Agra, which has its hands so deep in the pockets of all levels of government in farm states that it is difficult to even notice anymore. That influence has helped the building of more and more CAFOs in states across this country for all sorts of animals, reduced power of local governments to impact locations based on zoning restrictions or otherwise, and made it pretty much guaranteed that no elected official will take a stand against them.

Thankfully, we have a taken one step forward against CAFOs. A group of 15 Missouri residents recently filed a lawsuit againt the owners of a hog-based CAFO in Berlin, Missouri, owned by Premium Standard Farms. The CAFO produces about 200,000 hogs annually. The stench from the CAFO was too much for local residents to handle. Unlike any remotely sustainable agricultural practice where manure is used to fertilize fields and crops, as part of a natural cycle, CAFOs accumulate massive amounts of manure in an unnatural density, that tends to sit on the floor of the CAFO and is ultimately channeled to a nearby area essentially creating a pond or lake of manure. Yesterday, a jury of other Missouri residents awarded the plaintiffs $11 million. A previous lawsuit brought in 1999 by all but 1 of those plaintiffs yielded $1.4 million against Premium Standard Farms.

Suits such as this are not unprecedented. A couple in another area of Missouri filed a suit last year against another hog farm and won a $1.1 million settlement. The attorney who represented the couple claims to have filed about 350 similar cases against CAFOs throughout Missouri.

What is interesting here is that the CAFO was technically in compliance with state environmental laws, but was found to violate other standards required when dealing with neighbors through their rights of enjoyment over their own properties. But we already see signs of Big Agra trying to exact its influence. Premium Standard Farms did not hide its message when it said that the verdict gave the company "serious concerns" about making any future investments in Missouri. On top of that, I would only be surprised tohear that Big Agra is NOT already taking steps to change laws in every farm state to prevent any such future suits from prevailing anywhere. All it takes is for a little exception to be carved out for CAFOs.

Premium Standard Farms is owned by Smithfield Foods (of Virginia). Smithfield operates under that name (known mostly for spiral sliced hams) as well as Butterball (turkey, etc.), Farmland (hickory smoked bacon), John Morell (cocktail weiners), Carroll's Foods (turkey), Amrour, Curly's, Patrick Cudahy, Cook's Ham, North Side Foods and Stafano Foods (as well as numerous international only brand names). In addition to Premium Standard Farms, Smithfield operates domestic CAFOs under the name Murphy-Brown LLC and international CAFOs in Poland, Romania and Mexico under the names AgriPlus, Smithfield Ferme, Granjas Carroll de Mexico, and Norson.