THE NPPC’S BIG PORK CARTEL IS DRIVING AMERICAN
FAMILY FARMS TO EXTINCTION
Higher prices and fewer choices: Americans suffer when family farms disappear.
American farmers deserve a free and fair domestic market. Why does the NPPC disagree?
For over 20 years, Big Pork’s consolidation has pushed American family farmers out of business. As family farms vanish, Big Pork’s cartel has grown into an export-driven machine, enriching a handful of global companies while leaving American consumers with rising prices and fewer choices.
Its lobbying arm, the NPPC, claims to speak for farmers, but its agenda protects Big Pork, not the independent farmers doing things the right way.
INSIDE THE NPPC PIGGY BANK
In 2024, the NPPC spent over $27 million dollars defending Big Pork. This money promotes the interest of multinational pork giants like Smithfield and JBS – not the livelihoods of American family farmers.
While real American family farmers struggled to gain fair market access, the NPPC:
- Opposed Safety: Lobbied against common-sense regulations that protect workers from severe injury and rural communities from cancer
- Flew in Style: Spent $5 million on travel and conferences in 2024, flying employees and their companions on first-class and chartered flights
- Beachfront Retreats: Attended luxury 4-star retreats in Florida
NPPC EMPLOYEE SALARIES
THE BIG PORK CARTEL MANIPULATES THE U.S. MARKETPLACE
For generations, American family farmers have cared for their animals, supported their communities, and helped feed the country. So, what changed?
BIG PORK HAS BUILT A
DIFFERENT KIND OF SYSTEM
A system based on anticompetitive corporate consolidation and lowered farm profits.
It’s a race to the bottom that prevents American farmers from competing in a free market
and drives up costs while Big Pork manipulates domestic supply for export abroad.
In 2025, a massive 29.6% of U.S. pork was exported.
“Pork processors have regularly exploited the export market to constrain domestic supply, even when export sales result in a loss, because restraining supply significantly increases domestic pork prices.
A Smithfield economist estimated that a 1% reduction (or “disappearance”) in domestic supply would lead to a 3% to 5% domestic price increase.”
– U.S Department of Justice, 2023
BIG PORK CARTEL
The ILLUSION OF CHOICE
Only four global corporations – including China-owned Smithfield and Brazil-owned JBS – control 67% of all pork processing in the United States. Most of the dozens of brands you see at the grocery store are owned by just a handful of major corporations.
The NPPC’s cartel clients have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to settle price-fixing lawsuits over the past several years
The NPPC represents multinational corporations that have been prosecuted for inflating prices for American consumers. Courts across the U.S. have accused the NPPC’s big pork clients of price fixing and collusion, and several NPPC clients were named by the Department of Justice for conspiring to inflate costs.
And while the NPPC’s cartel clients colluded to drive up their own profits, farmers suffered: Iowa’s top hog-producing counties saw real total personal income fall roughly eight percent from 1982 to 2017.
PROPOSITION 12 PROTECTS AMERICAN FAMILY FARMERS
Independent farmers have made substantial investments in higher‑welfare family farms that meet the demands of American consumers and comply with animal welfare laws. Proposition 12 helps protect those farmers by setting baseline standards that reward responsible production and prevent confinement‑based factory systems from undercutting them.
Regulations like Proposition 12 creates a fairer market where small, family‑run operations can compete.
“Rising costs, disappearing markets, and big corporations nearly pushed us out. But then we found a lifeline in the crate-free market created by California’s Prop 12. It kept us in hog farming. Without it, we’d be in serious trouble.”
– Terry Mudd, a Missouri hog farmer speaking about his family farm
