Tyson Foods illegally obtained a federal loan program intended for “family farms,” a federal lawsuit by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) on behalf of the Concerned Citizens of West Tennessee alleges.
According to the lawsuit, a Henderson County, Tennessee, operation that raises chickens specifically for Tyson Foods received more than $3.5 million in federally backed loans from a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) program designed to help family farms with start-up and operational costs.
Because Tyson controls how the barns are built, how the chickens are raised and even the temperature of the barns, this facility is an extension of Tyson Foods, not an individual farm, the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee on December 12, names USDA, FSA, Nguyen LLC and Farm Credit Mid-America as defendants.
“It is clear that these industrial animal operations – including the poultry facilities in Henderson County – are neither small nor family run,” SELC senior attorney George Nolan said.
“The Farm Service Agency’s abuse of loan programs meant to help small, family farmers is a blatant violation of federal law and of the agency’s own regulations. FSA leaders should stop using lending programs meant for family farms to subsidize massive, multi-billion-dollar corporations like Tyson Foods.”
James Lavel, member of Concerned Citizens of West Tennessee, added: “The Farm Service Agency should be helping real family farms, not subsidizing massive corporations and rubberstamping dangerous industrial operations that can destroy our communities.”
The suit asks the court to vacate the loans awarded to the Henderson County facilities, prevent FSA from granting additional “family farm” loans to facilities that act as extensions of larger corporations, require environmental reviews before awarding loans and ensure safeguards are in place that protect “community members from the negative impacts of these facilities,” the press release said.
Tyson Foods declined a WATTPoultry.com request for comment.
According to WATTPoultry.com’s World’s Top Companies database, Tyson Foods is the second largest poultry producer in the world with 1.9 billion head slaughtered annually.
