Posted on 05/05/2018 5:50:44 PM PDT by Libloather
A North Carolina jury awarded $50 million to neighbors of a 15,000-hog farm in Eastern North Carolina in a case being closely watched across the country by environmentalists and the hog farm industry.
The verdict, revealed late Thursday after a jury deliberated less than two days, is the first to come in a series of federal lawsuits filed against Murphy-Brown/Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer.
In this case decided in a federal courtroom in Raleigh, 10 neighbors contended that industrial-scale hog operations have known for decades that the open-air sewage pits on their properties were the source of noxious, sickening and overwhelming odors. The stench was so thick, the neighbors argued, that it was impossible to get it out of their clothes.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsobserver.com ...
I do take bacon bribes. That’ll shut me up.
There was an area in Toronto where a big rendering plant existed for swine. If you drove into this area you uh noticed the aroma for sure. It was on some major streets. I imagine any people living nearby just got used to it or left. The plant long ago closed and is now a shopping complex. I still recall the smell though.
And people wonder why American business people are motivated to invest in China or Mexico
Smithfield Foods is owned by the Chinese.
I grew up on a farm, well until Daddy sold it and began working at Tyndall.
We also lived next to my Uncle’s farm. We raised a bit of everything, some cows, a few hogs, peanuts, corn, etc.
I know what a hog pen smells like and it was nothing compared to that commercial hog operation. Not even close.
It’s really cheap to buy a little property out in the country; when they spread the tankage, you learn why. Driving out through Lancaster County on RT30, you have to hold your breath sometimes. That’s mostly tankage from dairy cows. Of course some of these super-massive industrial farms take things to the extreme. The mining industry tried the same sht with tailing ponds - they got so big they took out all the towns down stream when they burst.
There is no money in hogs if you don’t raise them by the thousands. Hogs have been stuck around $0.50 a pound since the 1930s.
The lawyers will get 49.99 million. The neighbors will get a pulled pork sandwich. May get a bag of chips too.
Sounds like a perfect place to bury McStain when he croaks.
WHO WAS THERE FIRST?
He he he... China’s paying the tab on this...they own Smithfield.
*Live in Lubbock, TX and when the wind is right, you'll know about the cattle feed lots.
Then there is the cotton seed mills...
Someone will be living high on the hog now.
I don’t care for the ruling but have no sympathy because of ChicomFarms being involved.
I quit buying Smithfield products because of the Chicom ownership.
Has anyone noticed how tough pork chops have become in the past few years? Maybe having to do with accelerated growth of the hogs?
Depends where they are from, I guess—the cuisines vary widely from north to south, east to west in India, just like here before the great homogenization since the 70s. Probably the relative wealth of the family influences the smell, also, just like here.
A friend of mine used to work in a craft store. She said that when the Punjabi Indian ladies bought fabric or yarn and then returned it, even though the corporation made them give the customer their money back, they could not resell the fabric because it had absorbed those strong cooking odors.
Much leaner pork these days requires less cooking. Today’s pork is best at 145 or so degrees with some resting time.
There’s plenty of people with a growing preference for heirloom pork from breeds like Berkshires. It needs the longer cooking time and has traditional fat content.
I will bet you a dinner at the Nugget in Sparks that the hog farm was there first. You don’t suddenly move 15,000 hogs into a residential area.
Someone dies & the kids don’t want to run the farm or land, and a developer gives them a nice price so they can pay the ESTATE taxes, and : VOILA !! You have a nice new sub-division next to an existing hog farm.
FYI—Chickens & turkeys smell worse.
If its that bad, they shouldnt allow people to buy land that close, or if they do, have conditions in the sale that forbid lawsuits against the farms.
In the 50’s, I worked for Oscar Meyer in Madison, Wisconsin. It was a good job with good pay & I liked it.
The expression then was :The cement mixers never stop at Oscar’s. They were expanding all the time-—to feed an ever-expanding population.
After I moved out of the state, Oscar wanted to build a new ‘kill deck’ area for hogs. More expansion. The new neighbors who had moved further out from their Madistan apartments pitched a fit & blocked that expansion.
The next thing everyone knew-—the kill deck was being built-——in IOWA!!!! And a large number of JOBS were also going to IOWA. The same people pitched a fit all over again about the loss of jobs!!!
I just laughed at them.
AND EVERY PENNY of that decision will be passed on to the consumers.
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