By Seth Millstein for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

The largest pork producer in America is owned by a Chinese company, and a lot of people don’t like that. Critics of the corporate acquisition that took place in 2013 argued that Smithfield Foods’ Chinese ownership was a national security threat. Now, a political action committee is building on that sentiment — warning that Congress is being lobbied by Smithfield and other pork industry groups to slip language into the Farm Bill to gut the animal welfare protections of California’s Proposition 12. If successful, the PAC argues, this Smithfield-supported reversal of Prop 12 could multiply the threat to national security even more. But there are other major problems with the company that long predate any Chinese involvement.

“I hope that everyone will really wake up and realize what a tremendous threat it is right now in 2025 for us,” Marty Irby, the head of Competitive Markets Action, a political action committee devoted to defeating the EATS Act, tells Sentient. Proposed in 2023, the EATS Act contains language that pork industry trade groups are urging Congress to include in the Farm Bill. “It’s very serious, and it’s not something to take lightly,” says Irby, who has previously been a lobbyist for the Humane Society Legislative Fund. 

But does Smithfield’s Chinese ownership really pose a threat to everyday Americans? Let’s jump in.

Smithfield’s Chinese Ownership, Explained

Founded in Virginia in 1936 as a meatpacking company, Smithfield Foods steadily grew over the decades to become one of the biggest meat producers in the country. But in 2013, WH Group, formerly known as Shuanghui International Holding Limited, one of China’s largest meat producers, purchased Smithfield outright for $4.7 billion.

It was the largest-ever Chinese acquisition of an American company, and was highly controversial in America. The central concern among critics has remained largely the same in the years since: that giving China control over such a huge chunk of America’s pork supply represented a threat to American food security.

But what exactly does it mean to say that “China owns Smithfield?” Does the Chinese government itself run the company, as many critics have alleged, or is it just private citizens and businesspeople? 

The answer isn’t straightforward. On the one hand, WH Group is a private company that’s traded on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Smithfield CEO Larry Pope testified to Congress in 2013 that WH Group was not managed or run by the Chinese government, and Smithfield itself is still managed by American executives.

But according to a 2015 investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), WH Group does not operate independently from the Chinese government — at least, not entirely.

To begin with, the state-owned Bank of China facilitated the Smithfield purchase by giving WH Group a $4 billion loan. And although the company operates with a large degree of autonomy, it’s still required to adhere to the general goals outlined in the Chinese government’s five-year plan, and is expected to follow any directives it receives from the government to that effect.

To be sure, this isn’t specific to WH Group. The Chinese government is closely involved with all of its domestic industries, and regularly plays an active role in the running of private enterprises. The real question, at least insofar as Smithfield goes, is what this means for Americans — and Americans’ food supply. 

Why Do People Object to Chinese Ownership of Smithfield?

While Smithfield’s Chinese ownership has drawn controversy for a number of reasons, most criticism focuses on two topics: national security and American workers.

National Security

After purchasing Smithfield in 2013, WH Group owned one-in-four pigs raised in the U.S., according to a 2015 report. Many fear that giving a foreign company this much control over America’s food supply poses a national security risk, as it could imperil Americans’ access to domestically produced food. 

“If we get into some sort of world disaster, or a situation where there’s [food] scarcity — it could even be another COVID-19 — where do you think China’s going to send their pork? They’re going to send it back to China,” Irby says. “I think that’s very detrimental to our own population, as far as having the affordable food that we need to put on the table out there in times of crisis.”

At least one agricultural economist disagrees, however. “Chinese ownership of agricultural land does not threaten our ability to produce food,” agricultural economist David Ortega wrote in an op-ed at The Hill in 2024. “Food insecurity arises in our country not because of production deficits, but because of issues of affordability and access facing consumers.”

The U.S. is the third-largest pork producer in the world, and already exports around one-third of the pork it produces domestically. In an emergency situation, the federal government could simply put a temporary ban on pork exports, which would immediately increase the domestic supply of pork for Americans.

American Workers

Irby also argues that American farmers suffer due to Smithfield’s Chinese ownership, as the company’s profits no longer flow to Americans.

“We have American-owned companies and American producers that are out there that are struggling,” Irby says. “You’re seeing Smithfield and China now making the profits, and the American family farmer breaking even.”

There’s no question that small farms in America have been on the decline for some time now. The agricultural sector is highly concentrated, with the bulk of the profits going to a handful of large producers, and this trend has worsened over time.

Over the last 30 years, the farmer’s share of each retail dollar spent on their products has fallen by 20 percent, according to government data, and many operators of small- and medium-sized farms now earn less than $10,000 a year just from their operations — a figure that’s even lower when taking into account household expenses and debt obligations.

Family farmers have been feeling the economic squeeze for decades now, in other words, due to factors that long predate China’s purchase of Smithfield. The number of hog farms in the U.S. has been steadily declining since at least the 1990s, and so have hog farmers’ profits

Smithfield Foods, Animal Welfare and Proposition 12 

While it hasn’t drawn quite as much attention, China’s ownership of Smithfield Foods has also raised concern for the welfare of the animals under the company’s control.

Although America doesn’t have particularly strong animal protection laws, the parameters of meat production in the U.S. have been restrained, albeit to a small degree, by California’s Proposition 12, which banned the extreme confinement of certain livestock (including pigs) and, crucially, prohibits the in-state sale of meat products that were produced using extreme confinement measures, even if raised in other states or countries outside the U.S. 

Because California is such an enormous market, that second part of the law has resulted in meat producers across the country (and beyond) modifying their production standards to give pigs and other animals more space.

China, on the other hand, doesn’t have any livestock protections at all. There’s no requirement that animals be stunned, anesthetized or rendered unconscious before they’re slaughtered, let alone given enough room to live comfortably. Pigs raised for meat in China are crammed into enormous high-rise buildings, sometimes referred to as “hog hotels,” in which tens of thousands of pigs languish at any given time.

“Those animals are in duress,” Irby says of the pigs raised in Chinese slaughterhouses and other facilities that aren’t Proposition 12-compliant. “We believe that farmers should be able to raise a pig in an open pasture, or at the very least, have enough room for the pig to stand up and turn around,” says Irby. The sentiment does not appear to be shared by industrial pork operations, either in the U.S. or China.

Although Smithfield Foods is owned by a Chinese company, it still has to comply with Proposition 12’s regulations, as the meat it produces is sold in California. 

That’s where the language of the EATS Act comes into play. If passed or, more likely, if its language is included in the next Farm Bill, the move would overturn Proposition 12, as well as over 1,000 other state and local laws that regulate animal husbandry.

The Real Enemies: Pollution and Price Fixing

Although Smithfield’s Chinese ownership has stirred up a good amount of controversy, there are some other glaring problems with the company that have nothing to do with China, and which have received comparatively little press coverage.

Smithfield’s Pollution

Hog farms are responsible for a range of environmental impacts. They pollute the water, release greenhouse gases and stink up the air.

Smithfield is no different, and has been especially prolific in this regard. In 2022, a report by the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project revealed that 21 of the company’s pig farms in Missouri had spilled over 7 million gallons of waste into surrounding communities over the preceding three decades. That same year, a Smithfield farm in the state was fined $18,000 for spilling 300,000 gallons of manure into nearby creeks. 

The company has lost several multi-million dollar lawsuits relating to the degradation of air quality and living conditions in the communities around its farms. In 2018 and 2019, it was fined for water pollution violations at one of its South Dakota facilities, and according to estimates by the Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy, the company emits around 30 million metric tons of CO2 every year.

Price-Fixing

Smithfield Foods has also been accused of — and paid the price for — price-fixing on more than one occasion.

In 2023, the company agreed to pay $75 million in settlements after a group of purchasers accused it of artificially restricting its supply of pork in order to inflate prices. This was unrelated to the $42 million settlement the company paid the year before to restaurants and caterers, who also accused the company of price-fixing to boost its profits.

It’s worth noting that the purchasers in question accused Smithfield of engaging in this market manipulation since 2009 — long before China had anything to do with the company. The terms of the settlement did not require Smithfield to acknowledge any fault, however.

This intersects with the broader issue of monopolization in the meat industry, and the related issue of consolidation, in which large agricultural conglomerates like Smithfield either acquire smaller farms or put them out of business, resulting in less competition and more concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the largest agricultural companies.

“If they gain more market share, it’s just going to enable them to basically drive up the prices and demand what price they want,” Irby says. “We’ve seen it in so many other areas: The larger share of the market that a company owns, the more that they’re going to go in and drive up the price, because they can.”

The Bottom Line

As the largest-ever acquisition of an American business by a Chinese business, WH Group’s purchase of Smithfield Foods was undoubtedly a landmark moment in American business and agriculture. 

The company’s foreign ownership has made it a lightning rod for criticism. Smithfield has been credibly accused of price-fixing on several occasions, and has paid millions and millions of dollars as a result. But most of the company’s practices are standard for an industrial meat conglomerate, regardless of whether it is owned by a Chinese firm or not.


Seth Millstein wrote this article for Sentient.


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A group of Pierce County residents is awaiting a response to a petition for a contested case hearing for the expansion of Ridge Breeze Dairy to grow four times its size.

Larry Brenner, owner of Vino in the Valley, said his home, land and business is about a mile below the hill where Ridge Breeze is located. He said it makes his land and tributaries, like the Rush River running next to his property, especially vulnerable to things like manure runoff and accidents.

"That river is where my grandpa's land flowed through, so the fact that I now have a piece of that river flowing through my property, it's very special," Brenner observed. "And boy, it's threatened."

Brenner pointed out the expansion could result in almost 80 million gallons of untreated manure annually, potentially affecting water sources and causing increased odor issues and noise from hundreds of manure trucks.

Jenelle Ludwig Krause, executive director of the group Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin, lives about 20 minutes from Ridge Breeze. She said the personal effects of environmental and health concerns compelled her to take legal action.

Krause's mother has terminal cancer and she lost her brother to depression eight years ago. She explained when she learned that these conditions could be caused by exposure to carcinogens like those used to treat manure, she was horrified.

"Manure contains large amounts of nitrogen which is a probable carcinogen," Ludwig Krause pointed out. "The odors that come from the manure can increase anxiety and depression, and this really hit me close to home."

Both Ludwig Krause and Brenner said fighting concentrated animal feeding operations is challenging due to federal and state support but emphasized the importance of local ordinances and community involvement in curbing their growth.

"On my own, there wasn't much I could do. I felt really isolated and powerless," Ludwig Krause acknowledged. "I contrast what happened then to what's happening now, and I'm just so deeply grateful and hopeful that when people come together, we actually are building power to be able to change the things that are around us and have a voice in the decisions that impact us. "

Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin said it expects the expansion will be paused until the contested case hearing is resolved. In the meantime, it will continue to work with local communities to get more operations ordinances passed to help better regulate the agribusiness.


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By Grey Moran for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Zamone Perez for Virginia News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

Last August, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food & Safety Inspection Service, the federal team responsible for ensuring the safe and accurate labeling of the commercial meat supply, issued letters to several dozen meat producers to inform them of antibiotics detected in beef. This isn’t an unusual finding — antibiotics are widely used on industrial animal farms — yet the meat sampled was on track to be sold as “antibiotic-free,” “raised without antibiotics” or a similar label promising that the animals were never administered antibiotics.

These letters, recently obtained by the advocacy group Farm Forward through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal that the world’s largest meat producers — JBS, Cargill, and Tyson — raised cattle that tested positive for antibiotics prohibited under USDA-approved labels advertising the beef as free of antibiotics.

“This strongly suggests that the US antibiotic-free beef supply is deeply contaminated and deeply deceptive to American consumers,” Andrew deCoriolis, the executive director of Farm Forward tells Sentient.

The USDA’s Food & Safety Inspection Service found that 20 percent of the samples under this label tested positive for antibiotics, raising questions about how widespread mislabeling is in the U.S. commercial beef supply. These findings were announced last August, but the names of the companies which tested positive for antibiotics were not made publicly available until recently, as part of a new report released by Farm Forward questioning the validity of this popular label.

“It does seem to violate the nature of the label,” says Keeve Nachman, the associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Nachman is not concerned about immediate health impacts — consuming antibiotic residue does not cause an immediate illness, but contributes to the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria — though he is concerned about the broader lack of transparency around antibiotic use on farms and how that contributes to longer-term antibiotic resistance in humans and animals.

These faulty labeling practices result in a “mischaracterization of the magnitude of antibiotics being used in agriculture,” Nachman says. It’s been estimated that 70 percent of medically-important antibiotics sold in the U.S. — those used to treat human infections — are used to produce meat, dairy and other animal-sourced products. The difference between what’s presented on labels and actual use means the public may not understand the urgency. “It is going to mean that we don’t have the full appreciation of the pressure our agricultural industry puts on the ability of those drugs to resolve human infections,” says Nachman.

The World Health Organization calls antimicrobial resistance “one of the top global public health and development threats,” responsible for millions of deaths every year. The problem is only going to get worse, according to public health experts. The misuse and overuse of antibiotics — both in humans and farm animals (who often receive the same antibiotics) — leads bacteria to develop more resistant genes that then fail to respond to the medically necessary use of these drugs.

The USDA’s Food & Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) sent a total of 27 letters to offending meat companies, advising them to “conduct a root cause analysis to determine how antibiotics were introduced into the animal and to take appropriate measures to ensure future products are not misbranded.” FSIS sampled between one and four cattle carcasses per processing facility, which were randomly selected as part of a 2023 initiative. In the letters, FSIS stated that it would “not take immediate enforcement action in response to individual test results.”

“USDA is continuing to review policies and actions taken by the previous administration,” a FSIS spokesperson told Sentient in an e-mail, in response to questions about whether they intend to take any follow-up enforcement or policy actions. “FSIS remains committed to ensuring the safety of the nation’s food supply and protecting public health.”

deCoriolis points to the USDA’s lax oversight of this voluntary certification program, which requires that companies submit documentation to receive the USDA’s approval for use of this label. The USDA relies on self-reported information to validate these and many other claims, including humanely-raised and free range claims.

Meat brands are required only to submit written statements attesting to their process for ensuring antibiotics are not part of their meat supply chains. As deCoriolis sees it, the certification process is vulnerable to exploitation — companies can charge a higher price for meat sold as antibiotic-free but there is not enough oversight to ensure compliance.

“Despite the USDA knowing that this label claim is, in many cases false, they continue to approve the label without requiring testing to verify the claim,” continued deCoriolis. ”From our perspective, this is the USDA deliberately maintaining labeling policies that allow meat companies to mislead the public. And the effect of that is the USDA is giving meat companies a consumer liability shield to protect them from consumer protection laws.”

The Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) and Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA) set the federal legal frameworks for meat and poultry product labeling, which refers to the language on the back or front of meat packaging in grocery stores. Previously, courts have held that if the manufacturer’s labels are approved by the USDA, they can be legally used for advertising — effectively giving the USDA the final say on what winds up on meat labels.

Following these test results, the USDA updated its guidelines to “strongly encourages the use of third-party certification to substantiate animal-raising or environment-related claims,” but the agency fell short of actually requiring third-party verification. The updated guidelines were announced in August under President Biden’s administration, and there has not been any further action in this vein under USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Sentient reached out to every meat producer that received a letter to see if they had followed the USDA’s recommendations in conducting a root causes analysis to determine how antibiotics entered their food supply, or any other additional measures.

According to FSIS’s letter, inspectors identified monensin — an antibiotic that is banned in the European Union as a growth promoter in farm animals — in animal carcasses sampled at Swift Beef Company in Greeley, Colorado, a subsidiary of JBS USA, one of the largest meat companies in the world. JBS USA claims beef sold under its Aspen Ridge brand come from cattle that “have never received growth promotants of any kind.”

In an e-mail to Sentient, Nikki Richardson, JBS USA’s Head of Corporate Communications, wrote that “the product impacted in this instance was identified at the facility and never made it into the food supply.” She also wrote that JBS USA conducted an audit following this incident. No evidence of either statement was provided. Sentient asked if the company would be willing to provide Sentient with “the results of the audit, for the sake of consumer transparency,” but Richardson did not reply.

Similarly, FSIS detected monensin in an animal carcass at a Cargill facility in Fort Morgan, Colorado and tulathromycin (used to treat bovine respiratory illnesses) at a separate Cargill facility in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania. Chuck Miller, the global external communications lead for Cargill, replied that the company has not violated any regulatory requirements.

“Cargill complies with USDA and FSIS regulatory requirements to ensure safe and compliant products enter the market,” stated Miller, in an email to Sentient. “I would also like to reinforce that there has been no evidence that meat with antibiotic residue levels in excess of regulatory standards entered the food supply.”

Tyson did not respond to a request for comment. However, Tyson has scaled back on its previous pledge to raise beef without antibiotics, following previous public scrutiny of these labeling claims. 

There are shortcomings to FSIS’s testing program. The tests performed didn’t distinguish between selective antibiotic use to treat an illness and constant low-dose exposure to antibiotics administered directly into the animals’ feed. While both are prohibited under the labeling program, the excessive, chronic use of antibiotics poses a much more serious risk to public health, contributing to the development of antibiotic resistance. 

“If a cow is selectively treated for penicillin two years ago and gets harvested, that’s one thing. But if it’s been constantly exposed to a drug, over and over again, leading up to 30 to 60 days prior to the time it was harvested, that’s going to be a whole other level of residue,” says Marshall Bartlett, the co-founder of Home Place Pastures, a cattle and pig farm and processing house in Como, Mississippi. FSIS’s letters don’t indicate the level of residue. 

FSIS found that one of Bartlett’s cattle tested positive for penicillin, which is commonly used on small farms to selectively treat illnesses. He performed the root cause analysis as recommended, tracing it back to a nearby producer who sells him cattle, who forgot to tag that animal to indicate that it could no longer be sold under the labeling program. “The producer was very apologetic and understood,” says Bartlett. 

Out of all of the meat producers, Bartlett is the only one who said he performed this analysis and was willing to share the results. He hopes that the USDA expands and refines its testing for antibiotics use. “As far as we’re concerned, we’re really committed to transparency and figuring this out, trying to be an advocate for local farmers in our supply chain,” he says.


Grey Moran wrote this article for Sentient.


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By Dawn Attride for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Arkansas News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

It's no secret that industrial animal agriculture is draining our planet's resources and is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions - responsible for somewhere between 12 and nearly 20 percent of climate pollution. On a personal level, reducing meat consumption and adapting to a plant-forward diet are one of the most effective forms of climate action. When it comes to more systemic solutions however, lawmakers and development banks have favored interventions that tend to be tech-based, or human manufactured. These solutions, like dairy digesters that convert manure into biogas, or synthetic feed additives that reduce methane emissions from livestock, also tend to be hotly contested by a certain swath of environmentalists.

While such technologies promise to curb emissions, the reality is not so simple - and they also may do little to combat agriculture's stress on water, soils and biodiversity. These strategies often don't address issues like soil health or the deforestation of land - at least not directly.

A new report makes the case that the best way forward may lie in investing in nature-based solutions, rather than technological ones. The findings were published by The Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return Initiative (FAIRR), an investor network covering risks and opportunities in the global food system.

Investing in Nature Take Time, but Benefits Ecosystems

A nature-based solution uses natural techniques and ecosystems to address environmental challenges, such as planting trees or restoring wetlands to capture carbon.

The new FAIRR report is the "first of its kind" in developing a framework to attract investment for long-term climate solutions in a way that considers the whole planet holistically, Sajeev Mohankumar, senior technical specialist of climate and biodiversity at FAIRR, tells Sentient.

"Industrial farming produces more calories and produces more product per unit area because they are so efficient and their only goal is to maximize profit. But what we wanted to emphasize in this report is that that is not the only system of agriculture -- it also has to deliver for the animals in terms of welfare, human health and planetary health. That's where nature-based solutions come into play," he says.

FAIRR evaluated 22 on-farm interventions (12 nature-based, 10 tech-based) often cited to address agriculture's climate and nature risks. They found that nature-based solutions such as hedgerows (rows of shrubs that act as a carbon sink and reduce soil erosion) and silvopasture (integrating trees into grazing pastures) had a greater positive impact collectively on emissions reductions, biodiversity, freshwater use and the flow of nutrients across ecosystems. "Nature-based interventions can deliver 37 percent of the mitigation required to meet 2030 climate targets, along with significant nature co-benefits," the report states.

Nature-based solutions are touted as offering more holistic rewards, but can take time to show impact, which can be difficult to sell to investors. "I think there is a lack of knowledge in terms of connecting some of the financial returns to environmental outcomes," Mohankumar says. "This involves changing the behavior of farmers and tying them into a long-term contract...it takes a long time to yield benefits."

For example, technology like synthetic animal feed additives reduce methane emissions from livestock by roughly 10-30 percent, but offer few co-benefits for nature. Hedgerows, by comparison, reduce emissions but also have positive environmental benefits, such as reducing soil erosion and curbing nutrient runoff into water. On the other hand, hedgerows need to be planted in large quantities, and require a long timescale of up to 10 years to sequester significant amounts of carbon.

A Ticking Climate Clock Requires Thoughtful Solutions

Nature-based solutions have another added benefit: they tend to boost climate resilience, often in a more cost-effective way, according to a recent review of over 100 peer-reviewed articles. Sixty-five percent of studies found that nature-based solutions were better at reducing disaster risk, and 71 percent of studies found that they were more cost-effective than tech-based ones.

Currently, the majority of on-farm intervention investment flows toward technological advances, which, FAIRR says is "concerning." This is because tech-based climate interventions "are more likely to be aligned with intensive livestock production practices, and lead only to incremental emissions reductions relative to the long-term systemic changes from implementing nature-based interventions." In other words, these solutions cut down on emissions a little, without addressing the problems caused by industrial food systems, like poor animal welfare or water pollution.

Not every climate researcher sees a clear preference for technology or nature-based solutions. Sentient asked Richard Waite, director for Agriculture Initiatives, Food, Land and Water Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI), to take a look at FAIRR's research, with which he was not involved. Waite was a co-author of a 2019 report from WRI that recommended a suite of solutions to meet the challenge of feeding even more people on the planet - 9.7 billion by 2050 - without draining natural resources and driving up global temperatures to an unhealthy degree.

"This report looks at many interventions that are commonly cited when talking about reducing agriculture's impacts on climate and nature. It recommends more investment in nature-based solutions, while also noting that such interventions may lower food production," Waite tells Sentient.

"In our world of increasing food demand linked to agricultural expansion and deforestation," says Waite, "we must be very careful to assess any tradeoffs related to shifting to agricultural systems or practices that produce less food and require more land."

When it comes to food systems, tradeoffs can have significant consequences. For instance, shifting a factory farm to a regenerative beef operation could mean more space for farm animals to roam. That sounds like a better scenario for farm animals. But research has also shown that regenerative cattle ranches use twice as much land to produce the same amount of food. If Americans and other Global North populations were to continue to eat meat at even close to the same levels they do now, there is simply not enough farmland to shift all industrial farms to regenerative operations. And trying to make that shift would undoubtedly result in more emissions and more deforestation.

For Waite and WRI, a mix of solutions is key. "Our own research suggests that both tech-based and nature-based solutions will be essential to feeding 10 billion people by 2050, while protecting nature and the climate."

The Bottom Line

Fierce debates over climate solutions seem to be going strong, yet global temperatures - and food system emissions - continue to be heading in the wrong direction. If countries are serious about meeting their climate goals, they will likely need to consider comprehensive solutions that account for impacts to both climate and nature.


Dawn Attride wrote this article for Sentient.


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