Contributed by Jessica Hucks Tripp
It’s very typical (and VERY appropriate) around the 4th of July for people to get excited about the celebrations and festivities going on around them, all rooting from the freedoms we enjoy as Americans, the “land of the free, land that we love”…
I want you to meet some folks. Many of you already know them.
This is Chad, Casey, Clay, & Dean. Some of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet in your life. They’re Bladen Co natives, they’re home builders, hunters, sportsmen, Christians, dads, husbands… and they are hog farmers.
In fact, their farm is next on the court docket in Raleigh in the Smithfield Foods lawsuit.
The first cases, two farms that, as I understand it, were great farms owned by great people, were not given a fair opportunity- experts weren’t allowed to testify, juries weren’t allowed to visit the farms, and other necessary evidences that a “court of law” would need in order to make a clear, fair, unbiased judgment call that affects entire farming families for the entire remainder of their lives were either completely ignored or worse…acknowledged, then ignored.
But, it really hits home when it’s someone you know that’s being attacked for absolutely no credible reason. That’s just it- these guys didn’t do ANYTHING wrong.
They’re responsible… they do what they say they are going to do when they say they are going to do it.
They’re kind… I dare say that any neighbors of their farm have ever reached out to them asking for anything that they did not try their best to accommodate.
They’re providing for their families… and setting the example for their children of what working hard to achieve goals looks like.
And I’m proud to call these guys friends.
And now, because a greedy, unethical, out-of-state group of lawyers have painted a rosy picture laced with dollar signs for some of the local neighbors and coerced then into filing a lawsuit under the fraudulent terms of a “nuisance” smell so great that it disrupts their lives, these four families stand to lose their farm.
They say the opposite of love and passion isn’t hate, but apathy… a complacency, an indifference, unconcerned as to the outcome.
So I’m asking you, on this 4th of July, to not be complacent about this. To not let these out-of-state lawyers and this fraudulent, ridiculous lawsuit ruin this family. Get mad, share this post, tag the farmers in your life… and let’s take back our industry.
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