According to a Reuters report, Smithfield Foods is now buying 65 percent of its animal feed directly from farmers, up from the 10 percent it bought in 2010. The company’s acquisitions of grain elevators has allowed it to cancel several contracts with grain handlers — an industry that Reuters states is “already reeling from multiyear lows in corn and soybean prices.”
Smithfield purchased two grain elevators in Ohio in September, which allows the company to ship grain directly from Ohio to its facility in Tar Heel, N.C. The company’s hog processing plant, the largest in the world, processes about 32,000 hogs daily.