Hog Wars: The Corporate Grab for Control of the Hog Industry and How Citizens Are Fighting Back

Abstract

The following is a Missouri Rural Crisis Center report on their recent challenge to corporate hog farming in Missouri. The Missouri Rural Crisis Center is a nonprofit organization founded in 1985 by a group of family farmers and rural activists.1985 was a time of economic crisis for many farmers across Missouri and the nation. As the state with the second‐highest number of family farms, Missouri was also one of the states hit hardest by the rural crisis. Between 1981 and 1985, farm bankruptcies increased by 300 percent. Rocked by economic crisis that left no community in the state untouched, many Missourians questioned their country's policies in ways they never had before. Farmers and rural people sought to regain control over their future by protesting on the courthouse steps, filing class action lawsuits, organizing tractorcades, coordinating soup lines in cities, and in many other ways.In that climate, a group of farm and rural activists launched the Missouri Rural Crisis Center (MRCC) in October 1985, as an affiliate of the North American Farm Alliance. The organization became a separate not‐for‐profit corporation in 1987. Using paralegal and financial counseling, supported by community organizing, MRCC has helped to successfully restructure debt, assets, and farm plans for hundreds of farms in Missouri and other states. MRCC has also assisted dozens of limited‐resource, minority, new, and re‐starting farm families to begin new farms. The economic impact of these efforts on rural communities has been tremendous. A per farm average of $100,000 in clear equity has been gained in the restructuring cases worked by MRCC. In the majority of cases, these assets would otherwise have been transferred from small to medium‐sized farm businesses to absentee landlords. These are dollars that are multiplied many times when farmers stay on their land and spend their incomes in local communities. Below, staff from MRCC report on their recent struggle in Missouri against corporate hog producers.