Preston Arnold on his farm near Sikeston, Missouri, where he raised chickens before market changes on April 17, 2024. (Photo by Daniel Byrd for Investigate Midwest)
This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Despite remaining tight-lipped about its investigation into Tyson Foods, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has collected nearly 18,000 related documents. However, some worry the inquiry could end under the next Trump administration.
In August, Investigate Midwest reported that the nation’s largest poultry processor was under investigation by the USDA’s Packers and Stockyard Division, the office that enforces longstanding regulations meant to protect livestock producers from unjust practices.
The current investigation follows Tyson’s sudden closure of several meatpacking plants last year, which left many poultry farmers in debt and facing bankruptcy.
While the USDA has not publicly confirmed the investigation, former Tyson contract growers have acknowledged being approached by federal investigators.
Tyson Foods declined to comment.
In May, Investigate Midwest filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records related to a potential investigation, including interviews and documents provided by former Tyson broiler chicken contract growers.
The agency denied Investigate Midwest’s request in June. An appeal was also rejected last month.
“[The exemption] of the FOIA protects law enforcement records if their release could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings. The relevant law enforcement purpose in this instance is enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act,” Bruce Summers, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service administrator, wrote in a November letter to Investigate Midwest. “For the materials that have been withheld under [the exemption], we have determined that they are enforcement records for an active investigation.”
The agency said there are approximately 18,000 records related to the active investigation into Tyson Foods.
Antitrust experts believe the investigation is related to Tyson Foods’ closure of nine meatpacking plants across the country, beginning in early 2023. When these plants closed, contract growers who raised chickens for Tyson were left with millions of dollars in debt and no company to grow chickens for.
After closing a Missouri plant, Tyson Foods was urged to sell the facility to a competitor by U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. The two Republicans said not doing so could violate state and federal antitrust laws. Instead, Tyson sold the plant to Cal-Maine Foods, the nation’s largest egg production company, which would not be able to work with local farmers under their current operations.
Former Tyson contract growers sued both Cal-Maine and Tyson, alleging the companies colluded to prevent a different meatpacking company from purchasing the Missouri plant.
Former contract growers who spoke to Investigate Midwest said they could face bankruptcy and would have to sell land or take on additional debt to become contract egg farmers with Cal-Maine because each company has different growing, barn and equipment specifications.
Preston Arnold, a former Tyson contract grower who was approached by Cal-Maine to become an egg grower, said it would take nearly $2 million to update his barns for the company, on top of a nearly million-dollar debt balance on his Tyson barns.
Arnold, who said he was questioned by Packers and Stockyards employees after Tyson closed plants last year, is now a part of the ongoing class-action lawsuit. He told Investigate Midwest he had to take matters into his own hands as many growers were nearing foreclosures of their personal homes and businesses.
“Growers don’t have time to wait around for the federal government to act,” he said.
Pending rules under a new Trump administration
A second Donald Trump administration could mean investigations into Tyson Foods are put on hold or dismissed altogether, said David Muraskin, managing director for the agricultural legal advocacy group FarmSTAND.
“We would expect to see an investigation like this closed or just die,” said Muraskin, citing Trump’s history of deregulation and business-friendly policies.
During his first term, Trump rolled back pending Packers and Stockyard updates implemented by the Obama administration. Some of these rulings were revitalized during the Biden administration.
The revitalized rules under Biden included protections for livestock and poultry growers based on race, sex, age, or disability from the companies that purchase their animals and set contracts. Another recent update requires processing companies to disclose financial risks associated with poultry growing contracts, as well as provide details about how payment is assessed.
“No grower would enter in the contracts that they were told a slaughterhouse is going to close six months after they spend somewhere between $100,000 and a million dollars in upgrading their houses,” Muraskin said.
By the Numbers
9: Tyson Foods meatpacking plants closed across the U.S. in 2023.
18,000: Records related to the USDA’s investigation into Tyson Foods, withheld due to the active investigation.
$2 million: Estimated cost for a former Tyson contract grower to upgrade barns for Cal-Maine Foods’ egg production requirements.
$1 million: Average debt balance carried by former Tyson contract growers after plant closures.
2022: Year that the Congressional Select Subcommittee staff reported Tyson’s role in drafting a Trump executive order to keep meatpacking plants open during COVID-19.
2017: Year Donald Trump rolled back Obama-era Packers and Stockyard Act updates during his first term.
Even with the new rules, some farmer advocates say that the Biden administration dragged its feet in finalizing the updates.
Various other rules have been opened for public comment and are still being reviewed by the agency, including a rule that would address “certain problematic practices,” such as the common occurrence of contractor growers taking out debt to build or upgrade production barns and equipment. The proposal would require poultry companies to disclose risks, incentives and compensations associated with taking on capital anytime a company makes the request of a grower to expand.
The USDA declined to answer questions about the investigation and its collection of documents.
Muraskin said any rule not yet finalized could be subject to congressional review when the new administration takes office. But he added that stronger rules are best for rural communities, which Trump has pledged support for.
“If Trump is who he ran to be, this is something that the agency should very much be interested in,” Muraksin said. “This is companies exploiting the free market in ways that make it not operate cleanly, and are destroying rural America.”
Trump has routinely sided with large meatpacking and processing companies, including in helping the industry continue operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A 2022 Congressional Select Subcommittee report found that Tyson’s legal department drafted the executive order Trump signed forcing meatpacking plants to stay open as the virus raged through plants.
The report states that after the order was signed, the Trump administration asked meatpacking companies to “issue positive statements and social media about the President’s action on behalf of the industry.”
On a November 2024 earnings call, Tyson CEO and President Donnie King said the company has “successfully operated this business for over 90 years, no matter the party in control, the environment,” he said. “We look forward to working with the incoming administration.”
Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Our mission is to serve the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism. Visit us online at www.investigatemidwest.org