IATP Hog Report - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Section 5
decision by Judge Kornmann to tie the hands of the U.S. BIA and the
litigators/interveners is already having repercussions in environmental
disputes in the western United States, because the decision implies that
regional agency personnel have the final say over issues falling under the
purview of NEPA and that when the National office orders an
Environmental Impact Statement, the order can be safely ignored. It is
important that the interveners and the U.S. BIA prevail upon appeal.
Corporate welfare
Pollution shopping by corporate hog factories can be accompanied by a
different kind of shopping, when animal factory investors seek out
communities that are willing to offer financial incentives to firms to locate
in their areas. Hog factory proponents dangle the hope of much-needed
jobs and local business renewal to leverage permit approvals, tax
reductions, revenue sharing, and other perks from the community and/or
state targeted for development.
Ten states report having special tax incentives for expansion of animal
factories. 90
In a recent report entitled "Corporate Hogs at the Public Trough," the
Sierra Club details the payment of millions of taxpayers' dollars to ten,
wealthy, corporate hog factories "from Utah's red-rock country to
Maryland's Chesapeake Bay." 91 One of these states is Oklahoma.
Oklahoma
In 1979, Oklahoma had 10,000 hog farmers raising more than 300,000
hogs. By 1998, it had 3,100 producers raising 1.77 million hogs. 92 The
fastest growth in hog numbers is in the Oklahoma Panhandle where
Seaboard Corporation carries out much of the increased production on
factory hog farms. 93
The story of Seaboard Corporation's journey from Albert Lea, Minnesota,
to the Oklahoma Panhandle and the town of Guymon, capturing lucrative
financial concessions in return for economic development and leaving
behind economic misery instead, is told in Time magazine's series on
corporate welfare. 94
In 1996, Carla Smalts, a Safe Oklahoma Resources Development (SORD)
founder and Guymon rancher, described the personal and social toll
Seaboard's arrival in the Panhandle has taken on Oklahoma residents: 95
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