Smithfield Foods

From SourceWatch

Smithfield Foods is based in Smithfield, Virginia and is the world's largest hog producer and pork processor. Products also include the Armour, Cook's, John Morrell, Lykes, Patrick Cudahy and Smithfield Premium labels. The company distributes in the US and internationally, mainly Mexico, Western Europe, the United Kingdom, Poland, Romania and China. Smithfield also produces turkey and turkey products through its Armour-Eckrich operations and its minority holding in Butterball. The company has approximately 52,400 employees and had sales of almost $12.5 billion dollars in the fiscal year ending in 2009. ^[1] Smithfield controls 26% of the U.S. pork market, raising 14 million pigs at it's facilities and killing 27 million of the 60 million that went to slaughter in 2006. ^[2]

Contents 1 Overview 2 Animal welfare issues 2.1 Cruelty investigation of Smithfield supplier 2.2 Smithfield reneges on plans to phase out gestation crates 3 Environmental issues 3.1 Fined for violations of the Clean Water Act 4 Sierra Club's "Ten Least Wanted" list 5 Swine flu 6 Toxic holding pond deaths 7 Civil penalties for violation of anti-trust laws 8 Lobbying 9 Political contributions 10 Personnel 10.1 Key executives and pay 10.2 Selected board members 11 Contact 12 Articles & sources 12.1 SourceWatch articles 12.2 References 12.3 External articles

Overview

Smithfield has long been the largest pork packer in the world and more recently it has become the world's largest hog producer. The combination of farming and meat packing is unique and has radically altered the pork business. In recent years the company also bought beef operations. It is the fifth largest beef packer and a leading producer of deli meat and processed foods. Since 1981 when it was a regional pork producer, it has made over 20 acquisitions and expanded operations and exports abroad. The company's growth has been largely unimpeded by anti-trust actions. A 2003 acquisition of the bankrupt Farmland Foods elevated Smithfield from 20% to 27% of the market; without a murmur of protest from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) campaign against massive water pollution from its North Carolina and Virginia factory farms was soft pedaled; in spite of hog waste run-offs that turned rivers into toxic dumps. The company also struck down state laws prohibiting meat packers from owning the animals they slaughter.

Smithfield's hog farmers are employees running large, centralized factories specializing in one product. The demise of the Farmland pork cooperative may have been the last gasp of the independent farmer. While other meat packers have an oligopoly toward their farmers, Smithfield owns them outright. ^[3]

Animal welfare issues

Smithfield’s pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouses in rows of wall to wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and deliver their piglets in gestation crates. Forty full grown, 250 pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment and may trample each other to death. There is no sun light, straw, fresh air or earth. Floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a pit. Also falling into the pit are afterbirths, accidentally crushed piglets, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes and stillborn pigs. The foot wide pipes draining the pits are closed until enough sewage accumulates to create expulsion pressure for the contents to burst into a holding pond. Temperatures in hog houses often exceed 90 degrees. The air is so saturated with dust, excrement and chemicals that enormous exhaust must run 24 hours a day. If they break down for any length of time, pigs start to die off. ^[4]

Cruelty investigation of Smithfield supplier

From September 13 to November 2 of 2007, an investigator from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) worked as an entry level "herd technician 1" at Murphy Family Ventures pig breeding farms and slaughterhouses, under contract with Smithfield. In the video, pigs have the word "KILL" spray painted on their backs and screech as they're dragged to slaughter with a heavy metal prodder attached to their legs, ears and snouts. Women laugh as they castrate piglets without anesthesia or painkillers. According to the investigator:

"One female employee told me that was her stress relief for the week. That's the type of person doing those jobs. ... The treatment of the baby pigs shook me the most."

He also witnessed piglets' tails being sliced off, which are general practices at swine slaughterhouses, according to PETA. According to PETA spokesperson Matt Prescott:

"We believe that these acts of abuse constitute a violation of state animal cruelty laws. Employees were gouging out the eyes of pigs and violently dragging animals by an ear or a snout or a leg. A supervisor admitted on camera to viciously attacking pigs with metal rods."

PETA wanted workers filmed abusing pigs charged with animal cruelty, a criminal offense that's generally classified as a misdemeanor in North Carolina. According to the investigator, he quit the $7 an hour job out of fear that coworkers had begun to suspect him, as he was the only one not physically abusing the pigs. PETA says it conducted the investigation after a tip in August from a former Murphy Family Ventures employee. ^[5] According to spokesperson Don Butler:

"Non-conformances to the company's animal welfare policy were found. Appropriate actions have been taken, including termination of those who violated the policy."

Employees caught on hidden camera brutally abusing pigs were fired, though it wasn't known how many. Several were filmed dragging and beating swine, gouging out their eyes and castrating their babies without painkillers. The prosecutor's office in Sampson County, N.C. opened an investigation after PETA lawyers turned over affidavits and videotapes. According to PETA, present and future employees will also be forced to sign contracts promising not to abuse animals.

"(The abuse) happened every day," the PETA employee told Fox News on December 12 2007. "You can't even capture the full horror of what goes on there."

PETA called on Smithfield and its contractors to more aggressively enforce the humane treatment of the animals. They also wanted surveillance cameras installed, regular internal undercover investigations and a ban on gestation crates. ^[6]

Smithfield reneges on plans to phase out gestation crates

In June of 2009, Smithfield announced that it could not afford to go through with its highly publicized animal welfare improvements. The company said it must delay plans to replace “gestation crates” for pregnant sows with more humane “group housing.” ^[7] In January of 2007, the company announced a 10 year phasing out of gestation crates. Crates are used to keep pregnant and nursing sows immobile for over 3 years of their typically four year life span. During this time, sows typically give birth and nurse 5 to 8 litters of about a dozen piglets. All 187 Smithfield owned pig nurseries and Smithfield contract farms were scheduled to move sows to group pens. ^[8] At the time, Smithfield concluded that the crates could be replaced with group pens without any long term problems or cost increases. According to CEO C. Larry Pope:

"Working with our customers, who have made their views known on the issue of gestation stalls, we are pleased to be taking this precedent-setting step."^[9]

McDonalds and Walmart reportly requested that Smithfield and other pig producers quit using gestation crates after a panel concluded they were inhumane and unnecessary. The panel was appointed by McDonald's as part of a 1994 negotiation with Coalition for Nonviolent Food founder Henry Spira, who died in 1998. ^[10] When Smithfield executives announced plans in 2007 to phase them out, they refused to admit they were inhumane. Rather, they attributed their decision to consumer preference. A sow living in a typical industrial facility will spend the majority of her life confined to these metal and concrete stalls. She will have barely enough room to lie down and not enough room to turn around in. So far, six states have enacted laws against gestation crates. The European Union has required farmers to phase out all gestation crates by 2013. ^[11]

See also Animals raised & hunted for food on pigs.

Environmental issues

In 1995, when the company was attempting to persuade the State of Virginia to reduce a large fine for the company's pollution, CEO Joseph Luter contributed $100,000 to governor George Allen's political action committee. In 1998, corporate hog farms in North Carolina spent $1 million helping to defeat legislators attempting to clean up open pit lagoons. The state has consistently failed to employ enough inspectors to ensure hog farms comply to environmental standards. ^[12]

Fined for violations of the Clean Water Act

In August of 1997, Smithfield was fined 12.6 million dollars for violating the U.S. Clean Water Act in Smithfield, Virginia by a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia. It is the largest fine ever imposed under the Clean Water Act. Smithfield was dumping hog waste into the Pagan River, a tributary flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. A May 1997 ruling found the company's failure to install adequate pollution control equipment and properly treat waste water resulted in more than 5,000 violations of permit limits. The violations occurred for over five years and degraded the Pagan River, the James River and the Chesapeake Bay. Another ruling found the company had falsified documents and destroyed water quality records. Because the company delayed installing essential pollution control equipment and continued dumping waste into the river for five years, the EPA and the Department of Justice, forced them to build a sewage treatment plant. ^[13] Smithfield had appealed a series of lower district court rulings, arguing that the United States was barred from suing the company due to an "agreement" with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality that allowed them to "exceed permit limits". In September of 1999, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling. The panel of three judges unanimously agreed that Virginia’s agreement not to enforce the phosphorous was not part of the company's EPA approved permit. ^[14]

Sierra Club's "Ten Least Wanted" list

In 2002, Smithfield Foods made the Sierra Club's "Ten Least Wanted" list.

Just weeks after the second-largest beef recall in history, the Sierra Club released a report on hundreds of criminal and civil violations of America's largest corporate factory farms. The Rap sheet documented convictions for animal cruelty, bribery, records destruction, fraud, worker endangerment and pollution.

"Despite repeated violations of environmental and public health laws, many of the companies highlighted in the Rap Sheets continue to receive millions of dollars every year from the School Lunch Program and other federal food assistance programs." ^[15]

Swine flu

In 1994, the year the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, Smithfield Foods established the Perote operations with the Mexican agrobusiness AMSA (Agroindustrias Unidas de México S.A. de C.V.) In 1999, the company bought the U.S. company Carroll's Foods for $500 million and expanded its operations into Perote, Veracruz, Mexico. The first reports of Swine flu came from Perote, Veracruz, home to Carroll Farms and operated by Smithfield. In early March, local health officials announced a health alert and investigation. According to Perote officials, 60% of the population suffered from flu, pneumonia and bronchitis. Federal health officials dismissed the complaints until April 5, when sanitary restrictions were placed on Carroll Farms. ^[16] According to the company website the Perote facility raised 950,000 hogs in 2008. ^[17]

Toxic holding pond deaths

After a drivers truck in Oklahoma went over the side of a lagoon, it took almost three weeks to retrieve his body. In 1992 a worker repairing a lagoon in Minnesota began choking on fumes. After another worker dove in after him, he also succombed to the fumes and both died. In Michigan a worker overcome by fumes from a lagoon fell in. Several relatives dove in to save him and one by one, were also overcome by fumes and died. ^[18]

Civil penalties for violation of anti-trust laws

In November of 2004 Smithfield was fined 2 million dollars in civil penalties for twice failing to comply with premerger notification requirements before making stock acquisitions from its competitor, Iowa Beef Processors, Inc. (IBP), in 1998 and 1999. The company claimed that its IBP stock acquisitions were exempt from filing requirements as they were "solely for the purpose of investment." However, according to the Justice Department, the exemption did not apply as Smithfield was actively considering merging with IBP at the time. According to J. Bruce McDonald, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Department's Antitrust Division:

"Acquisition of stock in a firm that is also being considered as a takeover target or merger partner is not 'solely for the purpose of investment' under the HSR Act and is not exempt from the filing requirements. Ensuring strict compliance with the Act is crucial for effective antitrust enforcement. The Department will continue to closely monitor antitrust compliance in agriculture sectors."

In the last fiscal year ending in 2003, Smithfield's revenue was in excess of $9 billion. At the time, IBP was the nation's second largest pork packer. The company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Tyson Foods. ^[19]

Lobbying

The company spent $970,000 for lobbying in 2006. Three lobbying firms were used - McGuire/Woods Consulting, LLC., Williams & Jensen, and Patton Boggs. ^[20]

Smithfield is a member of the American Meat Institute.

Political contributions

Smithfield Foods gave $103,350 to federal candidates in the 2006 election through its political action committee - 23% to Democrats and 77% to Republicans. ^[21]

Personnel

Key executives and pay

• Joseph W. Luter III, Chairman and Consultant, $3,410,000. Exercised $19,020,000 in options.
• C. Larry Pope, Chief Executive Officer and Director
• Jerry H. Godwin, President of Murphy-Brown LLC, $1,150,000. Exercised $3,000,000 in options.^[22]

Selected board members

• Robert L. Burrus, Jr., Director, CSX Corporation
• Carol T. Crawford, Visiting Professor of Law at George Mason University
• Paul J. Fribourg, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, ContiGroup Companies, Inc.

^[23]

Contact

200 Commerce Street
Smithfield, VA 23430

Phone: 757-365-3000

Fax: 757-365-3017

Web address: http://www.smithfieldfoods.com

Articles & sources

SourceWatch articles

• American Veterinary Medical Association
• Clean Water Act
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Food and Drug Administration
• Humane Movement
• McDonalds
• Meat & Dairy industry
• North American Free Trade Agreement
• processed food industry
• Swine flu
• U.S. Department of Agriculture
• U.S. Government's War on Animals
• War on Animals

References

External articles

• F. William Engdahl Flying Pigs, Tamiflu and Factory Farms, Cetre for Research on Globalization, April 2009
• Profile: Smithfield Foods, Co-op America, accessed September 2007.
• Jonathan B. Cox, "Smithfield ads trumpet 'quality food, good jobs' As critics pounce, meat processor toots its horn", The News & Observer, June 13, 2007
• Marian Burros, "Union, in Organizing Fight, Tangles With Celebrity Cook", New York Times, April 20, 2007.