Firing back against another attack on the pork industry

Another media outlet — funded by activists who oppose animal agriculture — has taken aim at North Carolina’s pork industry. The Food & Environment Report Network (FERN) and The Guardian published an article from a freelance reporter decrying the relatively low number of complaints filed against North Carolina hog farms and implying that complaints had “vanished.” (The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer subsequently jumped at the opportunity to run another negative article about hog farmers.)

The article reports that North Carolina received only 33 public complaints against livestock operations from 2008 to 2018, while other hog states registered “literally thousands” during the same time period.  

An interesting theory, perhaps, but one that is factually wrong.

State records, publicly available and posted online, show that there were at least 474 complaints in North Carolina during that 10-year period. Not 33.

That’s still fewer than a state like Iowa, which had 2,393 complaints (assuming that data is accurate) during those ten years.

A good reporter might ask “why is that?” and do a little digging. He might, for example, consider that Iowa has three times as many hog farms as North Carolina.

Or, a good reporter might explain that North Carolina has one of the nation’s most stringent regulatory programs for hog farms, including mandatory on-site inspections of every hog farm in the state — every year — to ensure they are complying with the rules and regulations.

That means that, during that 10-year period, there were more than 24,000 on-site inspections of our hog farms. A good reporter might consider the idea that a rigorous inspection program leads to fewer complaints. Rather than attack state regulators, he might praise them. 

Instead, this freelance reporter jumps to his own conclusion and speculates that complaints simply vanish into thin air — despite no evidence to support that claim.

To bolster his argument, the reporter points to a sudden rise in complaints from November 2018 to April 2019.

The state received 138 complaints related to animal agriculture during that time-frame, resulting in 62 violations. Only 11 of those violations involved hog farmers. 

Two reactions:first, it’s worth noting that fewer than half of the complaints resulted in any type of violation. Farmers have often been upset about unfounded allegations that are made against them.

Second, if there were 11 violations against hog farms, that means there were 51 violations (82%) that involved something other than hog farming. So, why did the reporter direct his attack at hog farmers?

We all know the answer. Because hog farming is constantly in the cross-hairs. And activist organizations that want to do away with animal agriculture are often involved in directly funding this type of “reporting.” (Read more about that from the North Carolina Pork Council.)

The bias is clear.

Here’s one example: The article featured comments from Rene Miller, from Duplin County, who lives near a hog farm. Here’s what she says about living near a farm: “it smells like a body that’s been decomposed for a month.”

The reporter initially failed to mention that Miller is a plaintiff in the ongoing series of nuisance lawsuits filed against Murphy-Brown and thus had a clear motivation for making such outlandish, ridiculous and unbelievable comments.

But it sure did make a great quote! The Guardian actually used her quote as the headline for its story.

The reporter went on to dutifully highlight a litany of allegations against the pork industry, including unsupported claims of health issues and false accusations about the demographics around hog farms.  

The NC Pork Council provided detailed rebuttals to both “studies” — providing factual data about who lives near North Carolina hog farms and a report from a PhD that outlines serious problems with the health study mentioned in the article.

The reporter gave scant attention to those objections, mischaracterizing the Pork Council’s concerns and failing to explain why it believes the studies are flawed.

This type of reporting about our industry is disappointing, but not surprising. Our farmers have been under constant attack and there are no signs of it letting up. NC Farm Families will continue to stand up for our farmers and fight back against these blatant mischaracterizations of our industry.

Misleading Jurors & Spinning Tales in the Courtroom--What's Not Being Told in the Hog Nuisance Cases

The lawyer suing Smithfield Foods has a genius for creating villains in courtrooms – and he’s painted a picture of Smithfield Foods as an arrogant corporation driven by greed. For example, in the first trial Michael Kaeske told jurors Super Soils, which is one way to treat waste, was a ‘magic wand’ to cure all the problems caused by hog farms, and then he asked Smithfield executive Greg Schmidt, Why didn’t you implement Super Soils?

Greg Schmidt: It wasn’t economically viable.

Michael Kaeske: Did Smithfield do a study to determine how much it would cost to put Super Soils on its farms?

Greg Schmidt: No.

Kaeske made Smithfield look like a villain – it claimed Super Soils wasn't economically viable but it hadn’t done a study to determine what they cost. But Kaeske left out part of the truth. Smithfield didn’t do a study itself – instead it had funded a study by scholars at North Carolina State University to determine whether Super Soils was cost-effective. The research showed it wasn't. But Kaeske never mentioned that.

In the fourth trial, repeating the same point, Kaeske drew a bead on Wendell Murphy. Wendell Murphy, he said, was rich. He was the father of modern hog farming in North Carolina. And when he served in the state legislature he’d passed bills to make himself and other hog farmers wealthier. What did Kaeske leave out this time?

Wendell Murphy grew up on a farm in Duplin County, graduated from North Carolina State University in 1960, then returned to Rose Hill to teach high school. He also started raising hogs the old-fashioned way, outside in a field. Then, in 1969, a hog cholera epidemic hit and the Department of Agriculture destroyed his 3,000 pigs. He picked himself up, started over, and later he was one of the first farmers to raise hogs indoors.

Thirty-six years ago, in 1982, Wendell Murphy was elected to the State Legislature. He left the legislature twenty-six years ago in 1992. Michael Kaeske attacked Murphy for four bills that were passed decades ago. And Kaeske left out a key fact: “Those laws – adopted in the 1980’s and early 1990’s – often passed without a dissenting vote,” the News and Observer reported. Democrats voted for them. Republicans voted for them. The Secretary of Agriculture – a Democrat – supported them. The Governor – a Republican – supported them. For a simple reason: Tobacco was waning as a crop and the bills helped families continue to farm by raising hogs and chickens and turkeys.

Michael Kaeske didn’t mention any of that. In a courtroom, where the goal’s a fair verdict – based on the truth – Michael Kaeske spun a tale to mislead jurors.

This is the part 3 in a 6 part series about the hog nuisance cases.

Fayetteville Observer Editorial: The Part He Left Out

Tim White began by referring to North Carolina’s lagoon and spray field system – which is mandated by state law and regulated by the state government – as a primitive waste-disposal system.  Just like the Texas lawyer in the nuisance trials in Raleigh, he painted a gloomy picture of hog farmers, saying that “mists of sprayed swine effluent drift from farm fields to coat nearby houses or cars” and that “neighboring home values have had the daylights kicked out of them.” And, finally, he described the passage in the General Assembly of the 2018 Farm Act as a bitter partisan wrangle with Republicans on one side and Democrats on the other when, in fact, the bill was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.Let’s see if we can’t add some color to the dark, gloomy picture Mr. White painted of the pork industry in North Carolina.Smithfield Foods has invested over 17 million dollars in research – done by leading professors at North Carolina State University – to develop new and better ways to manage hog waste.  In addition, Smithfield was obligated to employ any new method that the professors found to be both effective and economically feasible.  However, none of the research yielded that result. Mr. White left that out of his op-ed.Mr. White also seems unfamiliar with home values in rural eastern North Carolina counties. I built my home on our family farm right in front of our existing spray field and it appraised last year for more than when I built it in 2010.  Compare that to Mr. White telling readers that hog farms have kicked the daylights out of their neighbors’ home values.Finally, one last word about the 2018 Farm Act: Democrats and Republicans came together to stand with the people who work hard to provide a safe and healthy food supply for this country.

I respect Mr. White’s right to voice his opinions about hog farming. But, at the same time, people need to hear facts instead of political rhetoric. And facts were the part of the story Mr. White left out. Lastly, once again, I’d like to thank Lt. Governor Dan Forest, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler and Democratic – and Republican – lawmakers for their efforts to protect NC Farm Families.

--Chad Herring, Executive Director of NCFF