Author: Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout

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In West Tennessee, a Group of Black Farmers Take On Tyson Foods

Tyson chicken barns, like these in West Tennessee, house more than 624,000 chickens each and produce massive quantities of waste. (Photo: John Partipilo)

by Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout

Brenda Scott’s father came to west Tennessee as a sharecropper. By 1971 — as a result of hard work and government loans — he had 129 acres of his own, some of which his descendants occupy today.

His adult children and grandchildren belong to an enclave of Black farming families that have lived in Henderson County’s Cedar Grove community for generations. Some continue to raise hogs, cattle and crops. Others, like Scott, left for college and jobs, only to return to raise their kids.

Scott, along with many Cedar Grove families, have now become part of a novel legal challenge to a federal government farm loan program they say has allowed industrial poultry operations to proliferate at a cost to the long established community.

I really want to stress the fact that this was a predominantly Black community growing up; it’s legacy land we want our kids to grow up on and enjoy the freedoms and experiences we had growing up. . . My fear now is that there’s no regulations for these chicken operators.

– Brenda Scott, Cedar Grove, Tennessee farmer

Chicken farms have rapidly expanded across rural west Tennessee in recent years in order to supply product to Tyson Foods, the world’s largest poultry producer. The Fortune 500 company’s footprint has been rapidly expanding in the state. 

Last year, Tyson opened a $425 million meat processing plant in nearby Humboldt, Tenn., its third large-scale Tennessee plant. The operation was made possible, in part, by $20 million in taxpayer incentives from the administration of Gov. Bill Lee.

Tyson relies on contract growers located within about a 60 mile radius of their slaughtering plants. The contractors raise chicks supplied by Tyson in massive barns built according to Tyson specifications and bring them to Tyson’s Humboldt plant for slaughter in order to get paid.

Scott, who is 56, said her community shares the same concerns as family farmers in adjoining counties who in recent years have tried — and failed — to get local or state governments to more closely regulate industrial chicken farming operations.

The operations produce vast quantities of chicken manure that she fears will pollute the well water her family relies on for drinking, the streams and creeks they fish for catfish and the quality of life that beckoned her back home to raise her two sons.

“I really want to stress the fact that this was a predominantly Black community growing up; it’s legacy land we want our kids to grow up on and enjoy the freedoms and experiences we had growing up,” she said. “There’s nothing like country living.”

“My fear now is that there’s no regulations for these chicken operators. What’s going to happen to my grandchildren drinking our well water? What about the air quality? I have asthma. So do members of my family. And nobody is telling us anything.”

Gov. Bill Lee greeting workers at the 2021 opening of a Tyson plant in Humboldt, Tennessee. (Photo: John Partipilo)

A new lawsuit brought by the Southern Environmental Law Center, representing Scott and neighbors who banded together to form “Concerned Citizens of West Tennessee,” is now challenging the federal government’s role in providing tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer-backed loans to Tyson contract growers. 

The litigation claims the United States Department of Agriculture, through the Farm Service Agency, is illegally subsidizing industrial chicken operations through a federal lending program intended to provide “family farms” with startup and operational capital.

“The FSA loan guarantees are illegal corporate welfare that contravene federal lending rules,” the lawsuit said.  

“The federal loan guarantees are illegal because the lending program is reserved for helping ‘family farms.’ Because Tyson controls virtually all aspects of the industrial chicken growing operations, those facilities are not ‘family farms’ under applicable lending rules.” 

The lawsuit also accuses the Farm Service Agency of failing to follow its own rules in conducting thorough environmental impact studies of farm operations seeking the loans — or in keeping local communities informed.  

Instead, the federal agency only conducts perfunctory environmental reviews, before issuing “rubber stamped approval,” according to the suit.

The lawsuit names a pair of affiliated operations across the street from one another in the Cedar Grove community that are owned by two limited liability companies — Trang Nguyen, LLC and Nguyen LLC. Each LLC is owned by one individual. 

Each operation has 8 chicken barns, massive single-story structures the length of a football field that hold 624,000 Tyson chickens at any given time. 

The barns, along with an open-air chicken waste dumping area, lie adjacent to a subdivision of more than a dozen homes and are located within 3 miles of the Cedar Grove community’s four Black churches, Scott said. On the far side of the barns, a Mennonite farming community has lived for decades. 

Scott is a longtime member of Bible Hill Baptist Church. Her husband pastors two of the other churches: Mount Pleasant Methodist and Seats Chapel Holiness Church. 

“We see them every Sunday,” Scott said. “I can see them on my way to church.”

The USDA did not respond to a request for comment, and contact information for Trang Nguyen LLC and Nguyen LLC’s could not be immediately found. 

Poultry farmers that contract with Tyson buy land and build barns in communities surrounding the company’s processing plants to serve as sole company suppliers.  Many of the farmers have little or no prior farming background. A growing number of Vietnamese-American families have moved to Tennessee from elsewhere in the nation to start their own Tyson-contracted chicken-growing operations. 

In 2017 — the same year Tyson announced its plans to open its Humboldt facility — Tennessee lawmakers rolled back a requirement for poultry growers to obtain water quality permits from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. 

According to the lawsuit, Trang Nguyen, LLC bought 152 acres in Henderson County and Nguyen, LLC bought 128 acres; then the two farmers collectively secured federal loan guarantees of approximately $3.5 million to purchase, construct and operate the facilities. 

The federal loan assistance can take the form of direct loans of up to $600,000 from the Farm Service Agency or up to $2,037,000 through a commercial lender with FSA loan guarantees. The loans are confined to farmers and their family members 

The rules guide agency officials to define a “family farm” as one that is “recognized in the community as a farm,” and that has “day-to-day management operational decisions should be made by members of the family farm” 

Tyson financed a large portion of the cost of the building the Nguyens’ facilities, contributing more than $960,000 in construction funding, the lawsuit said. 

“The Nguyen’s will not be poultry ‘farmers,’” the lawsuit alleged. “They will be poultry caretakers who own neither chicken nor feed. They will be much like indentured servants, strapped with tremendous debt and laboring within an industrial meat complex in which they are required to follow Tyson’s rules, lest they suffer extreme financial consequences.” 

The lawsuit notes that other government loan programs have determined that poultry contractors do not qualify for loans because of their integration into corporate operations.

Our legislature has passed laws that make it impossible for neighbors suffering or losing their home values to go to court. The courthouse doors to these individuals are closed.

– George Nolan, Southern Environmental Law Center

Tyson “exercise(s) such comprehensive control over poultry growers that those growers do not qualify for small business loans,” the lawsuit said, noting that the Small Business Association refuses to consider the poultry growers as “small businesses” for the purpose of loans because of their control by corporate poultry corporations. 

The federal loans and loan guarantees must also include an environmental assessment of the planned farm operations to “determine whether a proposed action would significantly affect the environment.” and to “involve the public in the environmental review process as early as possible.” 

The federal challenge follows years of failed efforts by family farmers in other rural west Tennessee communities to challenge poultry growing operations. Those efforts have largely been stymied by state deregulation. 

In 2017 — the same year Tyson announced its plans to open its Humboldt facility — Tennessee lawmakers rolled back a requirement for poultry growers to obtain water quality permits from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. 

In 2021, Tennessee legislature removed the power of local health boards to regulate industrial animal operations on health grounds, a preemptive move that came as the boards of health in Henderson County and adjacent Madison County weighed whether to regulate Tyson contract growers on health grounds. 

And, noted George Nolan, an attorney with the environmental law firm, residents have little recourse to take legal action against the massive chicken operations because Tennessee is a Right to Farm state, a reference to a 1982 law enacted to protect farmers from nuisance lawsuits by city or suburban dwellers who moved to rural communities, then protested about the noise, odor and pesticides from farms next door.  

“It’s a very problematic situation,” he said. “Our legislature has passed laws that make it impossible for neighbors suffering or losing their home values to go to court. The courthouse doors to these individuals are closed.”

James Lavel, who retired from the U.S. Navy, is an outspoken critic of the Tyson factory farms moving to west Tennessee. (Photo: John Partipilo)

James Lavel, a retired Navy commander in Henderson County, who has advocated for greater poultry operation regulation, said last week he has been frustrated by local and state elected leaders actions, and inactions, in the movement of large scale animal operations to the area, where the dangers of air and water pollution, and the overwhelming smell generated by chicken feces, have disrupted quality of life. 

“I’ve gotten a hodgepodge of excuses from them,” Lavel said. “And then the FSA comes in here and uses our taxpayer money for this. If you just keep putting the people at risk you’re trying to feed, what’s the point? We need regulations. They exist to protect the people.”  

Scott said the willingness of the federal government to provide Tyson contractors with federally subsidized loans and loan guarantees carry a particular sting for her, a second generation African-American farmer. 

In 2018, Scott applied for the same loan program to grow watermelons on the tract she inherited from her dad, who passed away in 2003.

She was denied, she said, because she lacked “managerial experience.” 

Southern Environmental Law Center Challenge by Anita Wadhwani on Scribd

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

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West TN Farmers Struggle to Get Crops to Market on Low Mississippi

The banks of the Mississippi River at Memphis. (Photo: Dulce Torres Guzman)

John Dodson’s corn, cotton and soybean fields lie fewer than 10 miles from the Mississippi River, the key transportation artery for west Tennessee grain farmers. But they might as well be a thousand miles.

Historically low water levels on the river are coming at the worst possible time for him. It’s peak harvest season, but he can’t get his crop to market. 

West Tennessee farmers have long relied on proximity to the Mississippi, delivering their crops directly from the field to the river. The ease of access has meant many farmers lack large grain storage silos that farmers in the Midwest and elsewhere rely on.  

While drought strangles transportation on the Mississippi, many of these farmers are now being forced to leave crops in the field and pray for rain to fall anywhere and everywhere else but above their harvest-ready crops.

“It’s a double-edged sword for us right now,” Dodson said. “We need rain for the river to go up, but we don’t need it in terms of our crops in the field.”

“I haven’t ever seen this before. We have the Mississippi right on our back doorstep and we’ve always been able to rely on it.”

The Mississippi River last week reached the lowest levels ever recorded — at minus-10.75 feet near Memphis, according to the National Weather Service. 

It is the most critical artery for grain exports in the nation. About 60% of all U.S. grain exports flow down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico for overseas export, according to the National Park Service. 

It’s a double-edged sword for us right now. We need rain for the river to go up, but we don’t need it in terms of our crops in the field.

– John Dodson, Dyer County farmer

Barge traffic has been restricted and the U.S. Coast Guard has limited the weight borne by each barge, measured in drafts — or the distance between the waterline and the deepest point of the boat. Draft limits are typically 12 feet. Last week the Guard limited drafts to 9 feet below the waterline in an effort to avert groundings in shallow water.

“There’s been a lot of groundings,” said Jamie Bigbie, vice president of Southern-Devall, which operates fleets of towboats and liquid barges that typically carry fertilizer to farmers.

The delays have been have costly, he said. A recent trip that typically takes seven days down the Mississippi took the company’s crew 14 days, he said. Weight restrictions limiting the amount of cargo still require the same number of crew, driving up costs. 

Crews stay on board for the entirety of the trip so the delays require additional supply boats bringing provisions and fuel to the barges, he said. And barges running aground imperil the safety of the crews on board and require expensive repairs, he said. 

“We need rain, obviously,” he said. “And I hope we get rain before it turns into snow. That’s how we get the ball rolling. I pray for rain.”

Nashville-based Ingram Barge, the largest barge operator in the United States, notified customers it had declared record water levels a “force majeure event,” the company said in a statement on Friday. The declaration invokes an “act of God” provision in their contracts.

“Chronic low water conditions throughout the inland river system have had a negative effect on many who rely on the river, including Ingram Barge,” the statement from John Roberts, Ingram Barge’s CEO, said. “We recently informed customers that given the difficult operating conditions posed by this low water, we were providing formal notice of a force majeure event — namely that circumstances out of our control were preventing normal river transport operations in certain areas.”

The banks of the Mississippi River at Memphis. (Photo: Dulce Torres Guzman)

Dodson, the Dyer County farmer, said he is more fortunate than most. He and his father took advantage of a state cost-sharing program to build large grain storage structures on their farm. The situation for neighboring farms is more dire, he said.  More than 90% of Dyer County is devoted to agriculture.

The wait to load grain onto Consolidated Grain & Barge in Dyersburg has been running 4-7 hours a day. Dodson’s other loading destination in Lauderdale County has experienced multiple day-long closures entirely in recent weeks.

Those two locations handle the majority of crops in Dyer, Lauderdale, Obion, Tipton, Crockett and other west Tennessee counties, including Dodson’s.

The weather in west Tennessee has been beautiful – sunny, temperate and perfect for harvesting crops. Any substantial rain now could imperil crops in the field.  Dodson is setting his hopes on rain anywhere north – Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota – to replenish the river. 

“We need rain in the United States, but it doesn’t need to be in Dyer County,” he said.

 

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

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Tennessee Healthcare Leaders Ask Legislature to Reverse Abortion Ban

Dr. Amy Gordon Bono, a primary care physician, speaking outside the Tennessee Capitol on Wednesday about the state’s “trigger law” that bans abortions. The law took effect at midnight. (Photo: John Partipilo)

More than 700 Tennessee doctors, nurses and other medical professionals are calling on the state’s GOP-super majority Legislature to revisit an abortion ban that criminalizes the procedure with no exceptions and subjects doctors who perform it to prosecution, fines and jail time.

In an open letter to the legislature, published in a full page ad in The Tennessean on Sunday, the healthcare professionals are asking the General Assembly to “reconsider the ‘trigger law.’”

“Tennesseans should have the right to make personal health care decisions with the assistance of their doctors and healthcare team – without the intrusion of politicians,” the letter says.

“This law puts the government in charge of deciding which healthcare options are available to patients, setting a dangerous precedent that violates the sacred physician-patient relationship.”

“And because it includes zero exceptions – not for rape, incest, fetal anomaly, or even to protect the mother’s life – it forces health care providers to balance appropriate medical care with the risk of criminal prosecution.”

Tennessee’s trigger law, formally named the “Human Life Protection Act,” took effect Aug. 25, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark abortion rights case, Roe v Wade and left to individual states the right to set abortion rules.

In Tennessee, the law makes performing an abortion a Class C felony, punishable for up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 for anyone who performs one. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. Instead of containing an exception to the law for abortions necessary to spare the life of, or grave harm to, a pregnant patient, the law says doctors may use those circumstances as an affirmative defense in a criminal trial.

All Tennessee abortion clinics have ceased offering the procedure;  women seeking abortions must travel out of state. And doctors say they fear they will be prosecuted for providing life-saving abortions.

The signers of the paid ad are individuals, not the hospitals that employ them. Hospitals have declined to answer reporters’ questions about how they will comply with the law and whether they are permitting any life-saving abortions to be performed at their facilities.

“We are doing the heavy lifting ourselves—and that means funding the effort ourselves, as well,” said Dr. Amy Gordon Bono, a Nashville physician.

The letter was initiated by Dr. Nikki Zite, a Knoxville OB-GYN, Dr. Heather Maune, a Nashville OB-GYN, and Dr. Jessica Rosen, a Nashville emergency medicine physician, a news release said.

“This letter quickly gained support from so many colleagues because healthcare workers don’t want a ban without exceptions,” Dr. Zite said. “Medical professionals understand that there are situations, often heartbreaking, when ending a pregnancy is necessary. People don’t want physicians delaying care because they fear being criminalized.”

Organizers are working to next run the ad in the Tennessean online, Dr. Bono said.

The letter does not include specific recommendations for whether the law should be amended or overturned, but notes the law, as it is written now, could criminalize routine and urgent medical procedures, including tubal pregnancies, serious infections or cancers during pregnancy and miscarriage care.

 

Full text of the letter:

As medical professionals from across Tennessee, we call on our legislature to reconsider the “trigger law,” which bans abortion without exception and criminalizes physicians for providing lifesaving care.

This law makes ending any pregnancy a felony offense, even when the pregnancy cannot survive to viability and threatens the life of the mother. This impacts women experiencing miscarriages, tubal pregnancies, or even serious infections or cancers during pregnancy.

Tennesseans should have the right to make personal health care decisions with the assistance of their doctors and healthcare team – without the intrusion of politicians. This law puts the government in charge of deciding which healthcare options are available to patients, setting a dangerous precedent that violates the sacred physician-patient relationship. And because it includes zero exceptions – not for rape, incest, fetal anomaly, or even to protect the mother’s life – it forces health care providers to balance appropriate medical care with the risk of criminal prosecution.

We stand united in support of Tennesseans to make their own medical decisions including abortion care, and we affirm the position of all relevant national societies, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Medical Association in their opposition of this dangerous legislation.

This story originally published in Tennessee Lookout, part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers.