Gary Pittman's farm near Rosendale, Mo., leaves no doubt as to his sentiments about the naton's biggest hog operation, North Carolina-based Murphy Family Farms. (photo for The N&O by Ival Lawhon Jr.)

MONTOUR, Iowa -- Hell has a new name. It's called "North Carolina," and you can catch a glimpse of it down at the local mall.

A traveling video show making the rounds at shopping centers here presents a truly horrifying view of life in the Tar Heel state. In the video, produced by opponents of corporate farming, images of huge industrial farms and bloated hog carcasses flicker across the screen. Neighbors complain about awful odors, overflowing waste lagoons and polluted rivers.

The photographs reinforce a view of North Carolina, deserved or not, that's held by a growing number of rural Iowans: that of a state that sold its soul and sacrified its environment to corporate farming.

"We don't want to become a North Carolina," said Barbara Grabner of the PrairieFire Rural Action League, echoing what has become the rallying cry for more than a dozen environmental and family-farm groups here.

But many of the state's government and agricultural leaders disagree, and that's why Iowa, like other Midwestern hog-belt states, is at a crossroads: If farmers fail to follow North Carolina's example, will they be left behind?

Already, corporate hog farming has made inroads in Midwestern states, but the changes have been relatively slow. Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota have enacted laws that restrict corporate ownership of farms. In Iowa, the nation's No. 1 hog producer, contract farming accounts for 15 percent of all hogs raised, compared to 82 percent in North Carolina.

Many younger farmers are welcoming the arrival of companies like North Carolina's Murphy Family Farms as a way to break into a high-capital industry. But traditionalists like Gary Hoskey, a small independent farmer from Montour, view the invaders as a direct threat to their economic survival.

"You can tell Mr. Murphy," Hoskey said, "that he's not welcome around here."

Replacing farms

The kind of hog factories that Iowans associate with North Carolina already exist in a few counties. If anything, they look even more imposing against central Iowa's flat, treeless landscape.

Retired hog farmer Blaine Nickles has seen perhaps a dozen of them spring up near the north-central Iowa town of Clarion. These are true corporate farms, owned and operated by DeCoster Farms of Iowa Inc. And to Nickels, they threaten not just individuals, but an entire community of family farms.

"It has upset our whole lives," said Nickles, whose hog barn now stands empty behind his modest, two-story farm house. "I don't pass an hour of my day without thinking about the damn things."

The tradition here is to raise hogs in relatively small lots -- a few hundred animals -- in a barn just behind the family homestead. The fields surrounding the farm grow corn during the summer that will fatten hogs in the winter. The manure from the animals is then applied to the land in the spring.

By contrast, the DeCoster farms are home to no one but hogs. The barns themselves are as big as football fields, wired with computers and heavily insulated against Iowa's harsh winters. There are as many as eight, 12 or even 16 buildings in a single complex.

"Each one of these farms replaces 10 family farmers," Nickels said.

"You're taking 10 family farms out of a community."

On a recent tour of his neighborhood, Nickels pointed out several of the early casualties of the corporate invasion: a brick farm house that was abandoned by its owners; empty lots and buildings where pigs were once raised. Collectively, the changes have been enough to turn even apolitical, media-shy farmers like Nickels into activists.

"We're farmers, so it's not like we mind smelling a little hog poop -- hell, I've probably eaten it," Nickels said.

"But these large facilities are coming in and forcing the small family farmer out of business. And now we're just trying to figure out what to do about it."

Who's No. 1?

Not everyone views the conflict in such stark terms. David Topel, dean of the agriculture school at Iowa State University, has been listening to both sides and finds himself caught in the middle.

Topel says he believes Iowans must protect their environment and living standards. But he's worried that excluding corporate farms will keep out the innovations and capital that the big companies bring.

"It's important that we have a strong livestock industry in Iowa," he said in an interview. "We feel it is possible to have both -- a strong and even stronger livestock industry and good neighborly relations between the operations and communities."

Topel's statements reflect the attitude of many agriculture and government leaders in Midwestern states. Some say the conflict between small family farms and contractors was really decided long ago, and any effort to block progress will only weaken their state's marketing position.

Throughout the Midwest, states are starting to put out the welcome mat, and North Carolina's big companies are positioning themselves to respond.

Murphy Family Farms has already become a top hog producer in both Iowa and Missouri. Carroll's Foods is considering moving into Iowa if changes in the state's anti-corporate law allow it to do so. Further west in Utah, Murphy's and Carrolls are combining forces with Smithfield Foods Inc. and Prestage Farms in a joint venture called Circle Four, a $400 million hog operation that would be capable of producing 2 million hogs a year.

Hog companies are aggressively courting Iowa agricultural officials to ensure access and goodwill. Murphy, for example, who is in the process of building a $6 million feed mill for its Iowa operations, recently announced plans to locate the facility in the home district of Beri Priebe, the current chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee in Iowa.

Meanwhile, Iowa's Republican administration is sending clear signals that it wants to do business. Gov. Terry Branstad has publicly set a goal for Iowa to gain an additional 1 percent of the nation's total hog production. A "Livestock Revitalization Task Force" appointed to help achieve this goal includes bank executives and the presidents of all the Iowa commodity organizations.

In 1993, Iowa's Department of Economic Development approved a $230,000 loan to help the North Carolina company Hog Slats Inc. construct a $2 million factory to manufacture equipment for high-tech hog farms.

The loan application papers laud Hog Slats' role in the "transformation from small family farms to more efficient, large-scale confinement operations."

Savoring small victories

But Iowa's independent farmers are refusing to go quietly.

A lobbying campaign is under way in the state legislature to prevent any erosion of anti-corporate laws. Independent Iowa farmers have fought for, and won, a recommendation for larger minimum buffer zones between the biggest hog farms and neighboring homes. The recommendation, part of governor's task force report released in December, is being considered by the legislature.

The groups also appear to have won the sympathy of many voters and church groups in a traditionally pro-farmer state. The plight of family farmers became a major issue in the 1994 election, and public rallies denouncing corporate farming practices have drawn as many as 1,000 participants.

About 50 pastors and priests attended a recent interdenominational conference on corporate hog farming in Des Moines, attending lectures on such topics as how to wage campaigns of peaceful protest against intensive livestock operation.

One clergyman whose congregation was divided by the hog issue says he finds himself preaching the same message that the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos delivered in the Old Testament.

"They saw what I'm seeing now: a smaller and smaller group at the top of society expropriating more and more of the wealth and power from the masses," said the Rev. Jerry Avise-Rouse, a Methodist preacher in the south-central town of Milo.

"This is exactly what the prophets spoke out against,"he said.

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