pork Archives - The Minnesota Sun

Leadership of Major U.S. Landowner Chock-Full of Chinese Communist Party Members

January 26, 2024January 25, 2024 Minnesota Sun Staff

Top executives at Hong Kong-based WH Group Limited, the world’s largest pork producer that controls vast swaths of U.S. farmland through its American subsidiary, are Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of corporate records and state-run media reports.

Records and reports reviewed by the DCNF identify four top executives and the chairman of the pork giant as CCP members with extensive ties to the Chinese government. WH Group controls nearly 150,000 acres of land across 29 U.S. states through its subsidiary Smithfield Foods, a family-run business established in 1936, which it purchased for $7.1 billion in 2013. While a keyword search on Smithfield’s website returned only two articles mentioning the firm’s relationship with WH Group, neither of the two articles mentioned China. An online map of Smithfield’s global business activities does not list any operations in, or connection to, Asia, despite archived reports from their website suggesting otherwise.

Minnesota School District Removes Pork from Menu to Accommodate Muslim Students

September 7, 2022September 6, 2022 Admin

A public school district in southeastern Minnesota has banned pork offerings on all of its menus to accommodate Muslim students.

Faribault Public Schools is no longer offering pork in its school cafeterias after a prior board meeting where concerns about the pork offerings were raised by the local chapter of the Minnesota Parent Union.

Largest Pork Packer Leaving California

June 15, 2022June 14, 2022 The Center Square

Another company is leaving California, this time the largest pork packer in the U.S.

Smithfield Foods, Inc., announced it is closing its Vernon, California, facility and reducing its hog production in the western U.S. region, citing as its reason the “escalating cost of doing business in California.”

Iowa Farmers Prepare for California’s Prop 12

December 29, 2021December 28, 2021 The Center Square

Man in gray tee and blue jeans walking in a field with two hogs behind him

Hogs born Jan. 1, 2022, or later are subject to California’s Prop 12.

Some Iowa agricultural leaders have criticized the law, which prohibits the sale of pork from hogs that are the offspring of sows that were raised in pens with less than 24 square feet of usable floorspace per pig.

California accounts for about 15% of the U.S. pork market, the National Pork Producers Council said in a September news release. The NPPC is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to determine Prop 12’s constitutionality.

Minnesota Company Gets Most Aid in Iowa Hog Disposal Program

August 3, 2020August 2, 2020 The Associated Press

One influential pork company has received most of the money from an Iowa program designed to support farmers who euthanized their hogs after the coronavirus devastated their industry, newly released data shows.

Christensen Farms, one of the nation’s largest family-owned pork producers, has received $1.86 million from the Iowa Disposal Assistance Program, or 72% of the $2.6 million the program has paid to date.