The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) has filed a lawsuit alleging that a federal loan program intended for family farms is being used to finance industrial poultry operations.
The suit, filed on behalf of community group Concerned Citizens of West Tennessee, argues that $3.5 million in federally backed loans to an independent poultry operation in Henderson County, Tenn., will benefit Tyson Foods because the business will raise millions of chickens for the processor.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Tennessee, contends that Nguyen Farms, the large-scale poultry facility in Henderson County, does not qualify for the Farm Service Agency lending program funds to help with start-up and operational costs because Tyson will control all aspects of the operation.
“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,” SELC Senior Attorney George Nolan said in a press release.
A Tyson spokesperson did not have an immediate comment on the lawsuit.
In the complaint, which names USDA, FSA, Nguyen LLC and Farm Credit Mid-America as defendants, the groups asked the court to vacate the loans awarded to the Henderson County facility, stop the FSA from granting additional family farm loans to such facilities, order federal officials to do environmental reviews before guaranteeing loans, and put in place safeguards to protect community members from any negative impacts of the facilities.
The lawsuit seeks to take advantage of ongoing tension between contract poultry farmers, who raise birds for major vertically integrated processors such as Tyson, and the processors, who retain ownership over the birds while the rest of the operation is owned by the growers. Some contract growers have filed lawsuits over their classification as “independent contractors” and the federal Department of Justice is looking into how individual companies’ are managing the relationship. The Biden Administration also has proposed a rule that reportedly would make it more difficult to classify the contract poultry growers as independent contractors.
